Health

A radio-wave monitoring system that enables new mothers to ensure they leave the hospital with the right baby, a photo-sharing service for X-rays and an infectious disease alert service are among the dozens of new information technology (IT) services being used by medical practitioners in Saudi Arabia today. With record spending on health care...

While the sheer scale of its hospital building programme is testament to the increase in the quantity of the Kingdom’s health facilities, money is also being spent on improving the quality of services. New cutting-edge facilities are being created to put the most recent technology to use and advances are being made in research in both medicine...

Wealth creation and job opportunities may be far from the minds of academics embarking on research, but scientific experiments can produce unexpected economic benefits. This was certainly the case in 1982, when a Saudi science project on prawns spawned a firm that now occupies 250 sq km and employs 2500 people. Thirty years after it was...

Though it enjoys a regional reputation for its quality, the Colombian health care system has experienced significant difficulties in recent years. While seeing advances in coverage in the past two decades, and inching closer toward attaining universal coverage, escalating costs from increased coverage and an ever-expanding mandatory health...

The Emergency Plan 2009-12 was launched five years ago to boost schooling levels in the kingdom, enhance the quality of teaching and infrastructure, and improve higher education and scientific research.

Health care infrastructure has seen significant developments, with the number of facilities rising from one for every 17,000 people in 1980 to one for every 12,000 in 2014. The system has 144 public hospitals, with 22,000 beds, and 373 private clinics, accounting for around 10,300 beds. However, despite improvements in health insurance...