Within the Partnership for Healthy Cities Initiative supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, and in partnership with the Directorate General of Health Services in Governorate of Muscat and World Health Organization (WHO) office in Oman, the Ministry of Health (MOH) launched today (Tuesday) Virtual Clinic project for the Primary Health Care. The launching was held under the patronage of H.E. Dr. Fatima Mohammed Al Ajmi, MOH’s Undersecretary for Administrative, Financial, and Planning affairs at the Ministry’s headquarter. 

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 publicized 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 is targeting 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. 

The project is composed of a number of components that are tablets, online chatting application (IJMeet), training, guidance manual, and publicity.

It is noted that the remote medical consultations has gained popularity worldwide being a way to communicating 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.