The eGovernment strategy for the Kingdom of Bahrain is focused on ensuring effective delivery of government services to citizens, residents and businesses (customers). The eGovernment strategy is summed up by:

“Delivering Customer Value through Collaborative Government”

The eGovernment vision for Bahrain is stated as follows:

To be an eGovernment leader committed to provide government services that are integrated, best-in-class and available to all through their channel of choice, thus transforming Bahrain into the best place in GCC to visit, do business with or live and work in.

Based on the feedback done by eGovernment from the citizens / residents, health-related services have come out amongst the most important public service, and also as a service where improvement is desired. To facilitate the MoH services, a seamless integration of all public health facilities maintaining health records for all patients and an online interface is required.

The Ministry of Health has embarked on an elaborate plan of internal computerization and automation which encompasses some of the services that are a part of the eHealth services project.

• Benefits envisaged from this project are:

  • Cost savings for the government through reduced duplication of effort, speeding patient treatment, improving safety
  • Single patient view for clinics that can be leveraged across multiple departments to increase productivity, streamline processes and maintain compliance
  • Instantaneous retrieval of information by clinics from other institutions – even during consultations with a patient - without having to log into a separate system
  • Elimination of error instances (clinics not having access to either the latest drug formulae or the complete medication history of the patient) in the current manual prescribing process, causing time delays for patients in getting the right medication
  
  
  

• Priority Service Coverage

  Implementation of eHealth Services will electronically enable the following services:

  • Results of laboratory and radiology tests
  • Provisioning of electronic health record
  • Issue of birth certificate
  • Issue of death certificate
  • Students registration for CHS
  • Licensure for medical practitioners, nurses & allied health
  • Licensure for food shops and other health-related organizations
  • Issue and renewal of licenses for clinics and medical centres
  • Registration of pharmacies and renewal
  • Others

  Ministry of Health provides choice of channels to citizens so that they may access services as convenient to their situation. Currently, the Ministry provides most of its electronic Services via Mobile Channels, Kiosks, and National Centers in addition to Bahrain Portal.

In addition, the Ministry of Health implemented the Short Messaging Services (SMS) in some of the eServices such as the eBooking Appointments for Pre-employment, Registration and Issuance of Birth Certificate and Registration of Hajj Agencies Medical Staff.

• Process Re-engineering

  The Ministry of Health aims through its strategy to provide services and quality health care for all citizens and residents alike. To provide health benefits and services, the ministry adopted Re-engineering process through the development of standards, medical protocols and treatment, and adoption of new technologies and information systems. One of the important services that have been re-engineered is the registration and issuance of birth certificates, the automation of the service includes birth registration and issuance of CPR until receipt of the certificate by mail.

• eGovernment Program Team at MOH