Recently at Arab Health 2019, the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health (MOH) and Masimo jointly announced the implementation of an automation solution designed to streamline the process of critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) screening of newborns using Masimo SET®, the first automation of its kind worldwide.

This latest phase in Saudi Arabia’s national CCHD screening program, which began in 2016 as part of the Vision 2030 plan addressing improvements in healthcare and other areas, automates the collection and storage of screening data, helping to make the process both more efficient and more accurate.

Last year alone 72 newborns were referred for CHD diagnosis and heart surgery to save their lives, as a result of positive screening results. The screenings are carried out at 200 medical centers operated by the MOH, with a further 170 private hospitals adopting the screening process in late 2018. By 2020, it is estimated that 550,000 newborns annually will be screened in Saudi Arabia.

In 2016, Saudi Arabia implemented a mandatory CCHD screening program for all newborns using the Masimo Eve™ Newborn Screening Application on Radical-7® Pulse CO-Oximeters® with SET® Measure-through Motion and Low Perfusion™ pulse oximetry technology. In 2018, Eve on Rad-97™ Pulse CO-Oximeters was added to the program. Masimo SET®, coupled with Eve to streamline the screening process, and now with Rad-97 and automated data collection and aggregation, provides a powerful and the only automated CCHD solution of its kind available worldwide.