Every year, millions of Muslims from around the world travel to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj, one of the Islamic rituals. Both government and private organizations and individuals provide a variety of services and facilities to support these pilgrims and solve any difficulties they may encounter. Assessing pilgrim satisfaction offers information on how Hajj companies fulfill pilgrims’ needs. When it comes to Internet-based services, Saudi Arabia is one of the leading countries in applying security policies in dealing with services. Although many studies have been conducted in recent years to determine how best to provide facilities and protect pilgrims' data, it is still essential to consider the pilgrims' safety and security (Khan and Shambour 2016).
Hajj season is considered one of the biggest challenges to various sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is one of the most critical targets for the responsible authorities. The government provides the necessary resources to serve the pilgrims through the various ministries concerned, such as the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah, the Ministry of Health, and others. Companies take advantage of the services by creating contingency plans to deal with any emergency threatening the pilgrims' health and safety.
This paper's main aim is to examine how to provide health logistics services through e-government. Technology currently serves as a significant means of delivering services (Alharbi et al. 2021). The Health Information System (HIS) strategy has a holistic approach that ensures the systematic implementation of these modern systems (السجل العلمي- الملتقى2014). This disciplined approach would ensure that all Saudi Ministries have unified, cohesive, and robust electronic medical management systems, which would enhance health care service. Moreover, it will aid in improving knowledge for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other service providers (Ministry of Health 2021). The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia devotes a significant amount of time and funding to the preparation and management of Hajj, which includes ensuring pilgrims' health care. However, several information gaps related to pilgrims' health during Hajj are fragmented due to the lack of a single health information system linking with hajj companies. The development of a coordinated Hajj Health Information System (HHIS) and a platform for sharing data and information among all hajj stakeholders would alleviate this. Pre-Hajj data, such as pre-existing health conditions and vaccination status, could be collected by HHIS. The HHIS data will aid research, health education, as well as the implementation and evaluation of Hajj public health interventions and policies. This information will assist in the development of unified standards and metrics for health service measures appropriate for Hajj and other large gatherings. HHIS involves building a solid infrastructure and ensuring that strict policies, systems to protect unauthorized access and the use of health information within the system (Yezli et al. 2018).
In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there are various Hajj-related entities (agencies). Cooperation between these agencies is beneficial to preserving Hajj's health safety (Niu and Xu 2018). The government of Saudi Arabia dedicates a significant budget to support the annual Hajj season, including offering free healthcare to all pilgrims (Falatah et al. 2021). E-government applications are currently a legitimate strategic tool for providing E-services (Al-Zahrani 2020). E-government has enabled sectors to provide faster, more cost-effective services, innovate resources and make better use of data to enhance service quality for pilgrims. E-government improves the productivity and quality of government by providing a platform for citizen engagement. It provides sector employees with the resources they need to carry out their responsibilities, and encourages citizens to collaborate with their governments to make their communities a safer place. Many state, regional, and international organizations have established e-government policies over the years (Alharbi et al. 2021).
The Hajj medical mission creates its strategic plan before the hajj season starts to ensure that all required tasks and actions are identified and well planned before the arrival of the pilgrims to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Medical missions play an important role in Hajj. They help in reducing effort, saving time, ensuring pilgrim protection, and identifying unknown pilgrims by fingerprints, and giving their information to the appropriate authorities (Sarhan 2019). Moreover, the Kingdom provides high-quality services for pilgrims' satisfaction by devoting significant resources to providing high-quality logistical services during the Hajj season. The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah monitors and follows-up on complaints and observations received by committees and electronic contact centers in order to enhance logistic services to achieve the pilgrim's satisfaction (ر. ي. ا. ليلى علي الغامدي 2017). In fact, logistics related to health services have a significant impact on Hajj. Granting permission to conduct Hajj, issuing necessary visas, security permits and health management are all services needed for these pilgrims. Consequently, the health service sector plays an important logistical role which encompasses two main responsibilities:
The pilgrim's need for healthcare may begin with the occurrence of some disease or accident that necessitates his transfer to hospital; this stage passes after the Hajj companies' logistical procedures are completed and before the medical procedures that are carried out by the Ministry of Health and associated sectors (Sarhan 2019). We propose developing an integrated platform for logistical health services between the Ministry of Hajj and the Ministry of Health, as well as Hajj companies, that links relevant data applications on a single database in an ordered manner to enhance current technological infrastructure and develop a technical community that represents the pilgrim's experience and increases his satisfaction.
Smart hajj health applications
Smartphones are currently an important part of digital life, allowing the tracking pilgrims' health through their use (Failed 2014). There are a number of smartphone applications that are currently used to facilitate the logistics of the pilgrims’ health and safety. With the development of the technology of mobile phone applications, various health applications have been created. Pilgrims may use the applications on their smartphones to help them to perform the Hajj in comfort (Madi et al. 2020). Health applications, on the other hand, include a wide variety of services, such as critical care monitoring, which necessitates high protection and reliability to transmit data to healthcare professionals in a timely manner (Vergütz et al. 2020). This includes the following applications:
Asefny app
This application offers the following resources to complement the Saudi Red Crescent Authority's efforts: notifying the Saudi Red Crescent Authority of an emergency and enhancing location accuracy, using the SMS text messaging service to deliver an immediate distress message to the Red Crescent in the research of an extreme emergency, assisting people with disabilities in submitting information, keeping track of the status of reports and staying up to date with the latest developments, keeping a detailed record of medical history, illnesses, and medications to facilitate and speed up diagnosis, directing users to nearby medical services such as clinics, hospitals, and dispensaries, as well as drawing a route on a map to the facility, using the device's camera flashlight to send coded distress messages and warning lights and sounds to alert those nearby of the need for assistance, providing logistical support to volunteers (The unified national platform 2021).
Sehha app
This application provides access to medical consultations through text, speech, and video conversations provided by specialist doctors accredited by the Ministry of Health, as well as artificial intelligence tools that allow access to safe medical information automatically, provide creative and sustainable solutions to enable individuals to receive preventive and health care tips to enjoy a better level of health and fitness. In addition, it provides a health evaluation tool that asks users questions about their health and generates a report with health ratings based on disease statistics and discusses how lifestyle influences disease risk and recommends healthier lifestyle changes to lower risk (The unified national platform).
Elaje app
This is an electronic portal for the delivery of electronic medical services with the aim of making appointment scheduling easier. It also allows for the online purchasing medical equipment via an online medical supplier and facilitating the procedures for treatment services (The unified national platform) as shown in Fig. 1.
As Fig. 1 shows that the smart Hajj health applications to serve pilgrims are not interconnected; each application works separately from the other and has a different database.