MGT 542 Business Innovation
Final Project Initial Written – Selected Topic:
To Evaluate the Impact of Cura Health in Improving Saudi Arabia Healthcare Sector and Globally
Prepared By:
Executive Summary
This report will be focusing on Telehealth. The rationale of this is that there has been an initiative for connecting specialised health care facilities with primary health care centers and hospitals in remote areas. This is by using telemedicine systems for enhancing the overall quality and reach of healthcare services. Owing to the recent prevalence of COVID-19 pandemic, there has been immense approaches which have been put in place in ensuring that quality healthcare is offered to the population. The selected innovation selected in this report is Cura Health in Saudi Arabia. Broadly, this report findings has established that the rise in Telehealth has been popular in the global business environment and also in Saudi Arabia. Hence, there is a possibility for telemedicine to be the new normal.
Despite of the success of the adoption of the telemedicine and Cura health globally and in KSA respectively, there has been a set of barriers which impact on their success. This is with respect to acceptance (both from the physician side and the patient side), technology, standardization, and cultural/ethical-legal issues. In order to mitigate these challenges/barriers to become enablers of innovation, various recommendations have been provided in this report. This is for improving the Cura Health effectiveness and relevance in the modern Saudi Arabia (KSA) healthcare environment.
Table of Contents
1.1 Background of the Identified New Health Innovation. 4
1.2 How the New Health Innovation works. 5
1.3 Recording of where the Technology Came from.. 7
1.4 Commercialisation of the Cura Technology Innovation in Saudi Arabia. 8
1.6 Early Adopters of the Cura Technology Innovation. 10
2.0 Key Challenges of the Technology Implementation. 11
3.0 Conclusion and recommendations. 12
Appendix 1: Advancement of Modern Technologies. 17
Appendix 2: Access of Healthcare irrespective of time and location. 18
1.0 Introduction
In the modern society, the rise of technology and innovation has had a significant impact on success of the prevalent relationships and overall wellbeing of the members. This is supported by Webster and Wyatt (2020) which evidence that the most popular technology trends include industrial robots, artificial intelligence and machine learning. All these have been advancing for improvement of the speed, quality and cost of goods and services. This will continue to expand as Finance Online (2022) identify as improving the customer business (59%), success in outreaching new clients segments (48%) and improving the internal operations (45%), improving overall internal practices (47%), offering new products and services (44%) and collaborating with 40% full return on commerce. Further, in the healthcare sector, Simpson and Ramagopalan (2021), healthcare technology has been noted as the force assisting healthcare providers in management of their patients, lowering dangers inherent in personal contact, waiting in crowded rooms/laboratories and hospitalization. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed more physicians to actual telemedicine practice as a core area of the new health. This study evaluates perspectives related to telemedicine from the physician and also a user point of view and their experiences. As evidenced in Mahoney (2020), the origin of the telemedicine can be traced back in 1990s where the internet development improved the access to these services. This was initiated from the medical images use by X-rays/scans, vital signs, ECG and real-time audio and video interaction. In this research, the outcome would be appropriate for improving the process and delivery of telemedicine and particularly the identified Cura health which has significantly gained immense prominence in Saudi Arabia and Middle East region. This is through an evaluation of information available in a respectable popular media, primary (quantitative data from a questionnaire with an innovative organisation) and available secondary data. The audience of this report findings will include the mentors.
1.1 Background of the Identified New Health Innovation
In this report, the selected new health innovation is Cura. This is the largest telehealth and telemedicine platform in Saudi Arabia. As evidenced in Ahmad et al. (2021), owing to the advancement of the mobile and electronic technologies, telemedicine is significantly accessible to all users (see appendix 1). An increased access to the mobile technologies has been core for advancing the telemedicine services. This is particularly popular in regard to the application of electronic medical records which facilities the storage and accessing medical information for patients and care providers. The rationale of using the Cura platform is for facilitating their users in communicating actively with the doctors for sourcing online medical consultations without any appointments. In Saudi Arabia, the main competitors for Cura Health include the Altibbi (CBInsights, 2022) and Vezeeta (CBInsights, 2022a) all engaged as digital healthcare powerhouse serving and empowering their patients in all the phases of their healthcare journey by leveraging on readily available data and technologies. Further, for efficiency of the organisation, its operations is in line with the requirements set by Saudi Ministry of Health. Specifically, as evidenced in Cura Health (2022) the organisation is fully licensed by the Saudi Ministry of Health with its license number 1400005491. The organisation also applies the use of a mobile application which leverage on the use of Artificial Intelligence. According to Gunasekeran et al. (2021) this is used in assisting in the detection, prediction and diagnosis of diseases in an accurate and prompt manner. This has an impact of reducing the overall incurred costs of medication with more than 50% hence increasing the administrative roles and efficiency in their operations.
1.2 How the New Health Innovation works
For evidencing how the new health innovation works, Business (2022) note that the telehealth had raised approximately $15 million from their local investors in an early funding round as they prioritise on expanding on services after the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic. The organisation operates an on-demand online health and wellness services. This is by providing their users with a prompt consultation opportunity with the doctors working around the clock, e-prescriptions and 6-8 week wellness programs. This is for advising depression, stress, chronic illnesses, nutrition and other health issues. This is informed by Algarni et al. (2018) report which evidence that the Saudi Arabia population has significantly increased positively to the current 34.81 million which is a significant number requiring high quality of healthcare. It is in this regard that Cura ensures that they leverage on the increase in inclusion of the private sector by the Saudi Arabia government. This is with an intention of cementing their current ranking as the 26 best countries globally offering high quality healthcare services. As part of the primary research by use of quantitative research, the findings of the use of the Cura health innovation is as illustrated in figure 1;
Figure 1: Use of Cura Health
As evidenced in figure 1, the main characteristics of use of the Cura Health include;
Exploration of hundreds of doctors– As evidenced in Karadag and Sengul (2021) the popularity of the telemedicine is evidenced by physicians in practices of upto 50 and more doctors having a likelihood of using telemedicine (30%). Similarly, for Cura Health, it actively operates by offering an active access to multiple doctors from various specialists by making a single click. Through this, an individual is one step away and hence could receive treatment of the entire family at a single point. Access of healthcare services promptly has remained a significant challenge in the modern business environment particularly in Saudi Arabia.
Top-Notch Doctors and Specialists– As opposed to physical hospital environment where some of the doctors and specialists would not be holistically screened or evaluated, Cura health offers an opportunity to review proficiency and efficiency of the doctors and other specialists. As evidenced from the survey with the provider management, it was evident that the focus of the organisation is to achieve what organisatiosn such as Teladoc Forbes (2022) the most popular telemedicine provider provides an all time access to doctors by use of phone/video. The outcome of this is patients sourcing quality medical care irrespective of their position and based on the time they need this.
Safe and Confidential– For Cura, they prioritise on the safety of all their users. As evidenced in Solimini et al. (2021), for 90% of all telehealth organisations, they end up facing 40% of security and authorization challenges as they are being implemented. It is in this regard that Cura ensure that they prioritise on safety for their entire consultations. This is by ensuring that the messages contained are holistically encrypted and managed by medical commissions holistically.
Received easily in a smartphone– As a best practice in the application of Cura health, there is a possibility of getting best trusted and valuable consultations all on the smartphone by only a single click. Through this, Totten et al. (2020) note that it is possible to improve the intermediate results and satisfaction with the provided healthcare services amongst all the existing organisations and care providers.
Further, it is evidently clear that as a best practice Cura health ensure that they invest appropriately on various health care programs. To evaluate the popularity of these programs, the questionnaire asked the respondents on what they feel as the most popular approach pursued by Cura Medicine (see figure 2);
Figure 2: Healthcare Programs in Cura Health
For the users, as illustrated in figure 2, they have to select the following services offered by Cura health;
Healthcare programs– The rationale of this is informed by Gmunder et al. (2021) which highlight that the application of the healthcare programs in Cura Health is guided by the view that using digital information and communication technologies improve ability of accessing healthcare services from a remote area and managing the overall healthcare provision. It is in this regard that the mentors noted that there are telemedicine sessions where doctors and health therapists have a timeline of 40-45 minutes for attaining varying health issues goals.
Better Healthy Lifestyle-This is a practice which entail selecting from diverse health goals which could entail weight loss, social phobia treatment, diabetes control, pregnancy follow-ups and anxiety treatment. This is supported by Bryndin (2020) identifying telehealth as being an all-inclusive strategy for improving the quality of life for the KSA patients while involving all the stakeholders for optimum gains. By doing this, all the traditional healthcare challenges are mitigated from the occurrences. This is for optimum benefit by the patient, government and also the end users.
1.3 Recording of where the Technology Came from
From a general context, the origin of Telemedicine can be tracked back from what eVisit (2022) identified as the video communication for medical purposes with clinicals at the University of Nebraska. Over the years, the New Health has significantly developed to establish the two-way television setup for transmission of information. The emergence of the new health programs is as illustrated in figure 3;
Figure 3: Recording of the Telemedicine
Considering the Saudi Arabia context, in year 2011, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in the country established their initial national project for telemedicine. As evidenced in Bryndin (2020) this included the Saudi Telemedicine Network (STN) based on prioritising on entire Healthcare Facilities. In particular, after the emergence of COVID-19, Alghamdi et al. (2020) note that in Saudi Arabia, the Telehealth applications have significantly increased in its popularity and its applicability in contemporary healthcare sectors. This is particularly the recent mobile applications including Seha, Mawid, Tawakklna, Tabaud and Tetamman. These have specifically been adopted for tracking the COVID-19 patients and also offering and facilitating quality healthcare services provision to the identified category of patients.
As evidenced in Cura Health (2022), the history of Cura Health Innovation could be traced back from the passion the starter developed in a laboratory of Johns Hopkins hospital. The initial development of the Cura Health in Saudi Arabia was initiated in 2016. This was done by the software engineers who included Wael Kabli and Mohammad Zekrallah with an intention of meeting the demand for the online health and wellness services to empower their users with a real-time messages provision, voice, and the video technologies. Also, they intended to provide a solution to the provision of a prompt and instant consultation with the doctors readily available for 24/7, offering online e-prescriptions and wellness programs for advising depression issues, stress, chronic illnesses, nutrition, and other lifestyle-linked challenges. This is while offering a consistent and detailed funding for the overall patient journey and introducing more services for the individual users and partnership with the customers such as collection of blood samples from their home and offering an integration of employees health gains with insurance companies.
At the start, in 2016, the number of doctors who were operating the platform were 10 but this number increased to 4,500 doctors today actively operating in the platform. Initially, they had also assisted only 1000 people when they started where they have managed to offer help and assistance to upto 350,000 users with majority of their users being from the Saudi Arabia Kingdom. After the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic, the trajectory of the growth of Cura Health has increased to invest in global telemedicine industry representing 5% of their entire clients. This is with a plan for fully leveraging on the international market by the innovation in the next 5 years. Currently, GlobeNewswire (2022) noted that the overall Global Telemedicine Market is today valued at $70.12 Billion in 2021 and projected to reach at $233.49 Billion by 2028 with the CAGR of 18.75% in the overall forecast period of 2022 to 2028.
1.4 Commercialisation of the Cura Technology Innovation in Saudi Arabia
For Cura health technology innovation to be successful, commercialisation is essential and need to be implemented. According to Datta et al. (2013), commercialisation of a technology innovation represent a strategy followed to bring products or services to a market. This can include the process of producing, marketing of the sales sourced, clients support process and distinct core areas to attain commercial success of the product/service. For the modern innovation such as Cura Technology innovation, Bracio and Szarucki (2019) note that the rationale for its commercialisation is for avoiding the common challenges which include lack of Sustainable Business Models (BMs) which are largely identified as a core limitation of the success in their implementation.
As part of the commercialisation of the Cura health technology innovation, the developers had to categorise it into different areas and from this tag a cost for its implementation. From the secondary report in Cura (2021), it observed that the founders of the technology innovation who include Wael A. Kabli and Mohammad Zekrallah categorised the innovation into various categories and came up with the best approach for their commercialisation. This is as illustrated in table 1;
| Service Category | Commercialisation Approach | Key Performance Indicators |
| Instant consultation | By investing on SAR200,000, they created a mobile application intended to harness capacity to leverage on prompt medical attention from the general practitioners and the family doctors | Already has 3 different categories of services Has approximately 2,700 doctors specializing in more than 200 medical disciplines |
| Specialist consultations | By investing on Artificial Intelligence (AI), the ease of browsing of entire Cura’s physicians and highlighted doctors | Have successfully embedded the user ratings, specialization level, wellness programs and different information For the Cura health, they are in a position for allowing an in-depth interaction with doctors and nurses, expertise and consultations. |
| Wellness Programs | By investing on cloud computing and mHealth which costed upward of SAR2.5 million, they ensured that they could engage wellness professionals. This is particularly in the specialties such as gynaecology, dermatology, psychology, nutrition and dentistry | For Cura Health, they operate through an appropriately noted objectives for modification of their anxiousness, social phobia, pregnancy follow-up and reducing the overall weight |
Table 1: Commercialisation Areas for Cura Health
The rationale of the commercialisation was for ensuring they offer the best quality healthcare services to all people irrespective of timelines and location (see appendix 2). By investing on all the identified resources, the management by Cura Health has managed to ensure that they provide immense services and achieve optimum number of patients feasibility. As part of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked on the success of the commercialisation by factoring on specific areas. The results are as shown in figure 4;
Figure 4: Success of Commercialisation Process of Cura Telehealth Application
Additionally, as part of their commercialisation, Cura Telehealth, their developers partnered with the entrepreneurship arm of Saudi Aramco. As evidenced in CURA (2022) report, they had partnered with the ELM and Wa’ed which is the entrepreneurship arm of Saudi Aramco. This is evidenced by announcing of closure of SAR15 Million Series-A investment. The rationale of this commercialisation was informed by the need to invest on the need to design effective digital solutions for the healthcare sector leading to an increased quality of life by the KSA community. This is with a need for integration of increased investments to pioneer and emerge organisations in the identified timeline. This was further supported by the third investment of SAR6.5 million investment facilitated by Enmaa Saudi Business Information Technology (ESBIT) starting in 2016 and 2021. The outcome of this commercialisation was the organisation increase in their entire local content in KSA through an appropriate investment on technologies localisation.
1.6 Early Adopters of the Cura Technology Innovation
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