Directorate General of Information Technology & Digital Health
![Directorate General of Information Technology & Digital Health](/media/ewsnkj1l/director-general-of-the-general-directorate-of-information-technology.png)
Praise to Allah who created the universe, founded it on one system, and guided us to the proper planning and clear goals based on future vision according to the available possibilities, leading us to achieve the best results and facilitate the continuity of purposeful progress in order to achieve the desired goals and achieving high-quality care and sustainable health. Information Technology and Communication (ICT) has witnessed, in the last few years, rapid progression and direct effects of the digital revolution on lifestyle in various areas including health lifestyles. No doubt, health information technology’s sector is heading towards a significant growth driven by the increased demand for modern technologies especially the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4th-IR) and sequential growth of the Technology infrastructure. In this regard, the Directorate General of Information Technology (DGIT) is obliged to cope with this digital spike and seek to achieve and integrated system that ensures patients’ safety and improves the quality of services provided to the community, aiming to form a national digital system serving the health sector in the Sultanate. The past years and this year (2019) witnessed activation and implementation of several national applications that serve this digital system, given that technical development and innovation in health care in Oman are among the pillars and priorities of the Ministry of Health through the provision of integrated health information services in accordance with international standards. The DGIT holds the responsibility of providing technical support for the health sector in Oman, through building a national integrated e-health system that serves the modern life necessities, through digitizing and automating the different health systems and providing the necessary ICT infrastructure. The achievements and innovations that we witness today is a product of hard work and correct planning by the managers of this system. During the past years, the DGIT has witnessed the establishment of several national programs and systems, designed and developed in-house by IT staff of MOH as per international standards and codes. These programs and systems have become a milestone in the Sultanate in terms of the number of digital transformations in line with the demands of the technical era and the e-Government strategy. Al-Shifa system is perhaps the most obvious milestone of the digital health system in the Sultanate, which manages medical records at health establishments. The Ministry of Health has established a national system for an E-health record, called “Nahr Al-Shifa” or NEHR. This system integrates all public and private health institutions into one e-health record using civil ID number as a unique identifier. The Personal Health Record (PHR), is derived from NEHR. Moreover, MOH has established a distinguished system including several sub-systems, such as Nabdh Al-Shifa is a national central data warehouse for health information, on which dashboards are designed and national reports and different statistics are generated using business intelligence (BI) tools. E-referral is a system that allows referring patients online from one health establishment to another. E-notification helps in reporting different medical conditions and incidents. There is also, the central blood bank system (National Blood donation Registry - NBDR), the central laboratory system, and the Central Birth and Death Registry “Ajyal” system, which deals with the registration of births and deaths, in collaboration with Royal Oman Police Civil Status. As well as the pilgrims' health check-up program, that is integrated with the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs (MARA), amongst other systems and programs. With this amount of systems, programs, and achievements, we are in a continuous state of a challenge to maintain, develop, and integrate these systems. Our role, as a team, is to try our best to maintain the essential building blocks of these systems and continue to build on together. All staff at the MOH are equally important and responsible in developing this system, and your pioneering in this matter is visible and we appeal to you to continue developing the system in order to achieve our goals of progression and prosperity. As a part of the Sultanate's strategy towards the digital transformation of the e-government, the Ministry of Health aims to reduce the digital gap and digitalize several services, and ensure integration with various governmental and private establishments, to reach paperless digital environments. To achieve that, the Ministry has established the e-health portal, which has e-services through the Internet and the internal network for different segments of the community using various technologies such as the government cloud, PKI, e-security, and e-payment to facilitate services for citizens and residents, reduce visits to health institutions, and save time and hasten productivity. The portal has different technical features to ensure smooth integration with any other internal of external. The visitor may also log-in to the portal through any digital device either computer, tab, smartphone, or any other devices. The mobile application of the portal is available for different smartphones platforms. As a part of innovation and development, the ministry implemented artificial intelligence technology to diagnose breast cancer cases. It was a successful trial project, and it will be applied during 2019 in 5 hospitals in the Sultanate; in the hope of implementing it in all the hospitals following the success of the trial in the 5 health establishments. We also intend to implement a VNA to connect radiology departments in health establishments to an interactive central database. In conclusion, we always emphasize the need to maintain regular assemblies and communication between us in order to serve our beloved Oman and to maintain the great achievements under the ruling of his Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. We pledge to his Majesty that the soil of Oman is our pride and honor and we assure him that Omani citizens will preserve the greatness of his achievements for the sake of our beloved Oman.
Mission
To develop and provide the latest smart and digital technologies for integrated and secured health and administrative systems, supporting the health and research scheme. To build a consumer centric health system. Expand the IT infrastructure, and facilitate e-communication of the digital health system in the Sultanate. Support IT human resources.
Read MoreHistory
MOH established the Directorate General for Information Technology in 2004 for the development, maintenance and support of systems. It structurally falls under the Undersecretary for Planning Affairs. It was formed with four departments: the Department of Health Systems, the Department of Databases, Networks and the Department of Communications, and the Department of Technical Support and Maintenance.
Read MoreServices
Services Provided
Annual Statistics and Ad-hoc Reports
Annual Statistics and Ad-hoc Reports
The database maintenance section receives requests for ad-hoc statistical reports from different entities in the ministry, related to health services and programs. These requests are fulfilled by generating reports from the data warehouse using BI tools
Read MoreNetwork Protection
Network Protection
Provide protection to ensure data privacy according to the international practices and to protect the network from viruses
Read MoreTechnical Support
Technical Support
Technical Support provides support and assistance to the staff of the Ministry of Health and its affiliated departments in case of disruption of computer services or any technical failure
Read MoreProjects
Plan of Electronic Content Management
This project is aimed to establish and implement a policy for a well planned strategy for the management of electronic content on the electronic health portal of the ministry of health. For this purpose, a task force was formed to set guidelines and standards for content that is published on the e-health portal. In addition, the task force has also set methods of measuring the quality and usability of the content published on the e-health portal to ensure it meets the visitors and users' needs.
Develop a Plan to Migrate from Cognos to Tableau as a Business Intelligence (BI) Tool
Cognos is a BI tool used currently in producing annual and ad-hoc statistical reports for decision makers and management in the ministry of health. However, in efforts to apply more user-friendly and cost-effective technologies, the DGIT plans to migrate to using a more supple tool that will allow end users to easily generate their reports without fully relying in BI developers. In addition, the new tool, Tableau, will be used to develop a real-time dashboard for higher management to explore the status of health services in an easy to interpret GUI.
National Electronic Health Record
The aim of this project is to build Oman's EHR. The care providers will be able to access the patient record from any health care facility belong to MOH.
Implementing e-Notification System
E-Notification system was developed by DGIT to streamline the notification process among all health care institution and headquarter. The system will provide online statistic for all communicable disease.
Provide MPLS Connection to All Health Institutes
Connect health institutes with one private network to communicate to each others and make it ready for e-government.
Back-up Solution
Back-up all databases and make it accessible at any time and recoverable at any time.
Development of Smartphone Applications
The DGIT intends to launch several health related mobile applications, including the e-health portal and e-services such as searching for drug prices and pharmacies on duty locations, and managing hospital appointments and viewing medical records.
Consolidating and Standardizing the Databases of Diagnosis, Radiology and Laboratory Tests
Due to the disparate health records, databases in health establishments, the terminologies and codes used to identify medical services, such as diagnosis and radiology and laboratory investigations have become diverse and not common among the health establishments. Therefore, there are efforts to unify these databases and standardize their identification codes in order to allow communication between health provides easier and less prone to misinterpretation.
Selection and Purchase of International Standards for Connecting databases and diagnostic radiology and laboratory tests
After consolidating and standardizing the terminology and codes of diagnosis and radiology and laboratory databases, they are to be mapped to internationally known coding standard systems in order to make the health information system more compliant to international standards and allow communication with health providers outside of Oman.
Disaster Recovery
We are working to build a disaster recovery specifications to make sure that the data (HQ and all health institutes databases, e-mail, users files) will not get deleted under any condition.
About Us
Last updated on : 28 August 2024 - 12:00 PM
![](/media/ewsnkj1l/director-general-of-the-general-directorate-of-information-technology.png)
Mission
To develop and provide the latest smart and digital technologies for integrated and secured health and administrative systems, supporting the health and research scheme. To build a consumer centric health system. Expand the IT infrastructure, and facilitate e-communication of the digital health system in the Sultanate. Support IT human resources.
Read MoreHistory
MOH established the Directorate General for Information Technology in 2004 for the development, maintenance and support of systems. It structurally falls under the Undersecretary for Planning Affairs. It was formed with four departments: the Department of Health Systems, the Department of Databases, Networks and the Department of Communications, and the Department of Technical Support and Maintenance.
Read MoreNews
![](/media/v1lkvr0j/df0292f4-a5be-4774-bbcb-b4c6b4351d4b.jpg)
10 July 2024
The Minister of Health honors the Medical Fitness Examination Project supervisors
![](/media/qtydtisk/data-tech-award-portal.png)
30 May 2024
The Ministry of Health wins the COMEX Award for Excellence in Technology 2024 for the Nabdh Al Shifa system
![](/media/gm3dfzic/mfs.jpg)
29 May 2024
The Ministry of Health won Best Integrated Digital Initiative for Digital Transformation for developing the Medical Fitness Examination system
Ongoing Projects
Plan of Electronic Content Management
This project is aimed to establish and implement a policy for a well planned strategy for the management of electronic content on the electronic health portal of the ministry of health. For this purpose, a task force was formed to set guidelines and standards for content that is published on the e-health portal. In addition, the task force has also set methods of measuring the quality and usability of the content published on the e-health portal to ensure it meets the visitors and users' needs.
Develop a Plan to Migrate from Cognos to Tableau as a Business Intelligence (BI) Tool
Cognos is a BI tool used currently in producing annual and ad-hoc statistical reports for decision makers and management in the ministry of health. However, in efforts to apply more user-friendly and cost-effective technologies, the DGIT plans to migrate to using a more supple tool that will allow end users to easily generate their reports without fully relying in BI developers. In addition, the new tool, Tableau, will be used to develop a real-time dashboard for higher management to explore the status of health services in an easy to interpret GUI.
National Electronic Health Record
The aim of this project is to build Oman's EHR. The care providers will be able to access the patient record from any health care facility belong to MOH.
Implementing e-Notification System
E-Notification system was developed by DGIT to streamline the notification process among all health care institution and headquarter. The system will provide online statistic for all communicable disease.
Provide MPLS Connection to All Health Institutes
Connect health institutes with one private network to communicate to each others and make it ready for e-government.
Back-up Solution
Back-up all databases and make it accessible at any time and recoverable at any time.
Future Projects
Development of Smartphone Applications
The DGIT intends to launch several health related mobile applications, including the e-health portal and e-services such as searching for drug prices and pharmacies on duty locations, and managing hospital appointments and viewing medical records.
Consolidating and Standardizing the Databases of Diagnosis, Radiology and Laboratory Tests
Due to the disparate health records, databases in health establishments, the terminologies and codes used to identify medical services, such as diagnosis and radiology and laboratory investigations have become diverse and not common among the health establishments. Therefore, there are efforts to unify these databases and standardize their identification codes in order to allow communication between health provides easier and less prone to misinterpretation.
Selection and Purchase of International Standards for Connecting databases and diagnostic radiology and laboratory tests
After consolidating and standardizing the terminology and codes of diagnosis and radiology and laboratory databases, they are to be mapped to internationally known coding standard systems in order to make the health information system more compliant to international standards and allow communication with health providers outside of Oman.
Disaster Recovery
We are working to build a disaster recovery specifications to make sure that the data (HQ and all health institutes databases, e-mail, users files) will not get deleted under any condition.
Services List
Annual Statistics and Ad-hoc Reports
Annual Statistics and Ad-hoc Reports
The database maintenance section receives requests for ad-hoc statistical reports from different entities in the ministry, related to health services and programs. These requests are fulfilled by generating reports from the data warehouse using BI tools
Read MoreNetwork Protection
Network Protection
Provide protection to ensure data privacy according to the international practices and to protect the network from viruses
Read MoreTechnical Support
Technical Support
Technical Support provides support and assistance to the staff of the Ministry of Health and its affiliated departments in case of disruption of computer services or any technical failure
Read MoreContent Resources
No Information Available At The Moment
Contact Numbers and Locations
Address
The Directorate General of Information Technology (DGIT) building is located in Muscat, Al-Khuwair, near to the main building of Ministry of Health.