Jeddah’s International Medical Center (IMC) is expanding its digital offering by signing a strategic partnership with Saudi Telecom Company (STC), it has announced.

The multidisciplinary hospital will reportedly make use of STC’s advanced telecom services “to enhance its medical care services and speed up the digital transformation process in the field of telemedicine,” the company said in a statement.

“This agreement is a crucial step in IMC’s strategy which aims for continuous medical development,” said Walid Fitaihi, Chairman and CEO of IMC. “It does not only support IMC’s eternal pursuit of the highest quality medical services ever made available in the region, but also to create new services with technologies that maintain human wellbeing anytime, anywhere.”

THE LARGER CONTEXT

IMC will reportedly first focus on developing its Virtual Clinic – a service offered by STC for patients and medical professionals. Other solutions it is expected to develop include its own voice identification services, and adopt STC’s Tari’ service, which allows doctors and other healthcare staff to send and receive notifications in a manner “that surpasses any other traditional system”.

STC’s digital initiatives to support the healthcare sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were first launched in June 2020.

“These initiatives are part of the company’s efforts as a digital enabler and are in line with Saudi Vision 2030 to digitise the infrastructure of the healthcare sector and provide suitable services to facilitate and automate the work of our healthcare heroes so that we may overcome all challenges brought about by this crisis,” Eng. Riyadh Saeed Muawad, Senior VP of Enterprise Business at STC, said at the time.

Meanwhile, early this year, IMC went live with its unified electronic medical record (EMR) by InterSystems.

ON THE RECORD

Eng. Saud Al-Sharihi, VP of Products and Solutions at STC, stated: “[This latest agreement with IMC] confirms the role of STC as a digital enabler in the health sector, providing the best digital solutions that will enhance health services for the sector’s beneficiaries.”