Ministry of Health launches Virtual Clinic project for Primary Health Care

Muscat: The Ministry of Health (MoH) launched on Tuesday at its premises a Virtual Clinic project for the Primary Health Care, under the patronage of Dr. Fatima Mohammed Al Ajmi, MoH’s Undersecretary for Administrative, Financial, and Planning affairs.

The project comes within the Partnership for Healthy Cities Initiative supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, and in partnership with the Directorate General of Health Services in the Governorate of Muscat and World Health Organization (WHO) office in Oman.

The idea of the virtual clinic was brought since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 where the service of tele-health consultations was introduced on March 2020 as a mean for communicating with patients and delivering health services. In the same year in October, each health institution was acquired a telephone line for service delivery and the number was publicised for respective local community. The service thus was covered in a more extensive and comprehensive manner through the use of available modern technologies.

The project targets patients particularly those with non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The virtual clinic is considered one of the alternatives deployed amid the spread of the pandemic; consequently, minimizing visits to the health institutions to ensure safety of patients and health workers.

It is noted that remote medical consultations have gained popularity worldwide as a way of communication with patients. It is expected to contribute positively in improving the provided health services as well the level of communication between the clients and the health institutions settings without attending the later in personal.