Usefulness of volunteer urgent mobile health clinics in improving cost-effective healthcare in the Al-Qassim Region, Saudi Arabia

Shaher Almutairi

doi:10.53730/ijhs.v6nS5.10885

Authors

Shaher Almutairi
smmtierie@qu.edu.sa
Department of Emergency Medicine, College of Medicine and Medical Sciences, Qassim University, Unaizah 51911, Saudi Arabia

Keywords:

Al Qassim, Healthcare cost, Mobile clinics, Saudi Vision 2030, Volunteer

Abstract

Mobile clinics are generally customized vehicles equipped with important medical equipment and staff to provide primary health services for populations at risk, enforce disease prevention, and improve access to chronic health management, at reduced costs. The present study evaluated the usefulness and effectiveness of volunteer mobile clinics in providing healthcare in different medical specialties in rural area hospitals in Saudi Arabia. The study also estimated the cost of providing such healthcare facilities and stakeholder satisfaction through the use of a standardized questionnaire. A total of 1299 patients attended the 36 mobile clinics’ setup with 39 volunteer consultants in five hospitals namely Al- Nabahanyah, Abanat, Qibah, and Qusiba. The age of the patients ranged between 1 to 80 years. The average cost per patient was reduced to 150 SAR which is 25% lesser than that of the national average cost of consultation (200 SAR). Based on the survey results it was seen that the overall satisfaction of patient services offered by mobile is very high (87.4%) while it ranged between 80-95% in different hospitals. However, the response rate was very low and ranged between 16-31% while the average response rate was 21.8%.

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