Riyadh, KSA - Patients Know Best (PKB), the world’s largest personal health record platform, today announced its launch in Saudi Arabia. PKB's first assignment in the Kingdom is an educational collaboration with Al Maarefa University, which has integrated PKB into its core curriculum.

The university programme officially kicked off with Dr. Mohammad Al Ubaydli, CEO and Founder of PKB, delivering a lecture to Al Maarefa University students from various programmes including Medicine, Nursing, Respiratory Care, Emergency Medical Science and Anaesthesia Technology.   The lecture focused on the role of personal health records which is an important topic to Health Information Systems (HIS) students at Al Maarefa University.

Part of PKB’s decade-plus-old global pro bono Education Programme, the course is designed to address the profound transformation in healthcare by preparing students to thrive in a digitally-enabled, patient-centric environment.

The Al Maarefa partnership directly addresses the cultural and demographic shifts in the region. Saudi Arabia has a highly digital population where 65% are under the age of 30. These patients increasingly expect collaborative, tech enabled engagement from their healthcare providers.

As a social enterprise, PKB aims to help clinicians engage with patients as informed partners, supporting the company’s mission to empower patients with knowledge and be active partners in their own care. Since its launch in 2014, PKB’s programme has seen around 5,400 students participate across multiple educational institutions globally.

The university’s programme will use the PKB platform for essential simulated activities, including consultation skills training, complex case study review, and interprofessional problem-based learning. This hands-on experience provides students with practical, safe training in a world where patients have real-time access to their records, enabling them to build the skills for the most productive clinician-patient partnerships. 

There will be three assignments related to PKB for the students this year which will be coordinated by both Associate Prof Dr. Nasriah Zakaria and Eng. Ghaith Koushaji at the College of Applied Medical Sciences at Al Maarefa University.

Dr Nasriah Zakaria commented: "We are extremely pleased to introduce the PKB platform to our students.  By integrating this cutting-edge technology into our curriculum for 180 students in the Computer for Health Science Course and 20 students in our Health Information Systems program, we are aggressively modernizing our educational approach.  Specifically, the collaboration with PKB will teach students how a personal health record is designed and how it can be used effectively by both patients and healthcare providers in the coming years.  The integration of PKB in our curriculum is highly supported by the Dean, Dr. Ali AlHaiti, and the head of Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Dr. Mohammed Al Gabri.’"

Dr. Mohammad Al Ubaydli, CEO and Founder of Patients Know Best, said: “Al Maarefa was the first private university in KSA to launch problem-based learning, it's natural they are first in the kingdom to pioneer personal health records in their curriculum. It’s a pleasure for PKB to launch in Saudi Arabia with Al Maarefa University. This is about more than deploying our software; it's about investing in the future of clinical practice. The students here will work with one of the most digitally savvy and youngest populations globally. This programme ensures they are not just medically knowledgeable, but culturally prepared to partner with patients in a digital age.”