> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.healthdatacon.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Mohamed Alkherb Uses Gamification to Encourage Consistent Health Information Exchange - URL: https://www.healthdatacon.io/mohamed-alkherb-uses-gamification-to-encourage-consistent-health-information-exchange/ - Published: 2026-10-16T11:31:39.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T11:31:39.000Z - Description: At HealthDataCon 2026, Mohamed Alkherb described how Saudi Arabia’s nphies ambassador program rewards consistent use of shared patient records, with plans to bring care quality into its recognition model. - Author: Health Data Management - Tags: EMEA A national health information exchange can connect thousands of organizations and still face a distinctly human challenge: persuading clinicians to consult the information consistently. At HealthDataCon 2026, Mohamed Alkherb described how Saudi Arabia’s National Platform for Health and Insurance Exchange Services (nphies) platform is addressing that challenge through an ambassador program that recognizes practitioners for sustained use. Alkherb, MS, product management senior expert at Lean Business Services, presented “nphies Ambassadors: Gamification in Saudi Arabia’s Health Information Exchange.” His account connected the development of a national exchange with a newer effort to make reviewing a patient’s shared record part of everyday practice. The immediate mechanism is straightforward: bronze, silver and gold badges based on active days. The longer-term ambition is more demanding—bringing measures of care quality into the recognition model. ![Presenter timeline tracing nphies from foundational concepts in 2012 through insurance services, unified health records and expansion in 2026.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/91/db/91db0927-dd9a-4578-9944-921da70f6885/content/images/2026/10/nphies-development-timeline.png) The development timeline presented by Alkherb. Slide credit: Mohamed Alkherb / HealthDataCon 2026. ## Connect the ecosystem before changing the habit Alkherb described the fragmentation that preceded nphies. Providers and insurers exchanged information through different portals, emails, faxes and other channels. Patients arriving at a new hospital could be asked to bring printed records from previous providers. Each connection carried its own operational burden. The National Platform for Health and Insurance Exchange Services was designed to provide a common route for those exchanges. The Council of Health Insurance’s [platform overview](https://chi.gov.sa/en/Uniplat/Pages/default3.aspx?ref=healthdatacon.io) distinguishes its insurance services from unified digital health services, reflecting the two complementary functions Alkherb described. His presentation traced foundational concepts to 2012, interoperability specifications to 2016, insurance services to 2020 and the unified health record launch to 2023\. Subsequent phases expanded participation and clinical use cases. He characterized the work as a sequence of development, adoption and expansion rather than a single launch. The scale figures he reported also distinguished the two sides: more than 8,000 organizations connected for insurance services and approximately 3,200 for the unified health record. He reported more than 60,000 practitioners using the record and approximately 36 million patient records containing data. These were presenter-reported platform figures; the ambassador initiative was a much newer layer of the program. ![nphies connects payers, providers, regulators, patients and supporting services.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/91/db/91db0927-dd9a-4578-9944-921da70f6885/content/images/2026/10/nphies-connected-ecosystem.png) The connected nphies ecosystem. Slide credit: Mohamed Alkherb / HealthDataCon 2026. ## Make shared information usable in clinical work The insurance workflow follows a patient’s financial journey through eligibility, prior authorization, claims and payment information. The published [use cases](https://portal.nphies.sa/ig/usecases.html?ref=healthdatacon.io) describe exchanges between providers and insurers through the central clearinghouse. Payment notifications communicate payment details; they should not be confused with the platform itself transferring funds. Alkherb explained that nphies checks messages before forwarding them. Missing required information or incorrect coding can send a request back for correction. The insurer evaluates the request and returns its response through the same channel. The platform’s [implementation guide](https://portal.nphies.sa/ig/index.html?ref=healthdatacon.io) documents the business and technical requirements for these exchanges. On the clinical side, he described a portal that brings together encounters, allergies, diagnoses, procedures, clinical documents, laboratory results, imaging reports and medications. An integrated hospital system can open the relevant patient record directly. He distinguished available imaging reports from image exchange that remained forthcoming in his account. Mobile access extends that workflow. Alkherb described practitioner access through Anat, including a patient-consent process, and patient access through Sehhaty. The Public Investment Fund’s [Lean profile](https://www.pif.gov.sa/en/our-investments/our-portfolio/lean/?ref=healthdatacon.io) identifies Anat as a practitioner platform and Sehhaty as an individual-facing platform. The Ministry of Health describes [Sehhaty](https://www.moh.gov.sa/en/eservices/sehhaty/pages/default.aspx?ref=healthdatacon.io) as a route to health information and services across the sector. The practical goal is to make prior information available when it can inform a decision. Alkherb pointed to reviewing previous tests and medications before ordering again. Whether a repeat is appropriate still depends on the patient’s circumstances and the clinical relevance of the earlier information. ## Reward consistency through the ambassador program The ambassador program targets the gap between access and use. In Anat, practitioners can see a badge reflecting their nphies activity alongside indicators about their patient encounters and practice patterns. “They need consistency,” Alkherb said, explaining why the calculation emphasizes active days across a 365-day period. Repeatedly opening the platform on one day does not provide the same progression as returning on different days. He described silver recognition beginning at 100 active days and gold at 200, with bronze below the silver threshold. He also described a leaderboard under development that would highlight the top 50 practitioners, their organizations and their active-day totals, with particular visibility for the top three. Recognition therefore reaches both the individual user and the organization supporting that user’s work. The accompanying indicators can show encounter volumes and types, as well as patterns in repeated medication or laboratory orders. Those measures give practitioners information to examine alongside their badge. They also suggest how the program could evolve beyond a simple measure of frequency. Alkherb said the initiative had launched the previous month and described early signs of increased engagement. He did not present a controlled evaluation or quantified clinical outcome improvement attributable to the badges. The current design measures utilization; its proposed next stage would connect recognition more closely to the quality of practice. ## Move from active days toward meaningful use “We will include in the formula other qualitative KPIs related to the quality of care,” Alkherb said. That statement describes a planned direction, not a completed quality-based scoring system. The audience’s question went directly to the design challenge: how can a platform encourage meaningful use rather than activity intended mainly to improve a ranking? Alkherb responded by describing technical and clinical data checks already used or being developed around the information flowing into nphies. His examples included completeness, consistency, timing and diagnostic specificity. Does an encounter contain the expected clinical information? Are dates plausible for the transaction being submitted? Are codes and other fields consistent with one another? Is a diagnosis sufficiently specific to support the intended use? Those checks address the reliability of information available for care and measurement. They do not, by themselves, establish that opening a record improved a decision. Alkherb’s explanation left the future reward formula’s detailed measures and weighting open. Connecting dependable data, meaningful review and clinical benefit remains the next design task. ## Support adoption with people, standards and feedback Alkherb’s lessons extended well beyond gamification. Onboarding depends on organizational capability: systems that support exchange, developers who can implement interfaces and medical coders who can map local terminology to shared standards. He described FHIR-based insurance exchanges alongside support for other established messaging formats on the clinical side. Terminology mapping gives exchanged fields a shared meaning. Organizations using their own laboratory or procedure codes must work through those mappings before the receiving system can interpret the information reliably. Testing, certification and continuing support then help move an organization from technical preparation into routine participation. The rollout prioritized large organizations and groups, while using staged development to incorporate experience from earlier use cases. “We heard the market feedback,” he said. Eligibility, authorization and claims work could progress in sequence while teams addressed problems raised by users. Technical and clinical coding task forces brought together representatives from providers, payers, vendors and subject matter experts. “It finds a common ground for all of them,” Alkherb said of that approach. Site visits and direct communication between organizations helped distinguish exchange problems from issues in an individual participant’s systems. Training remained another foundation. “Continuous education for the market helps create awareness,” he said. The [academy course](https://academy.nphies.sa/en/courses/6/registering-in-nphies-platform?ref=healthdatacon.io) for platform registration covers medical, technical and business topics, reinforcing that successful participation requires more than an interface connection. The ambassador program adds a behavioral intervention to that broader implementation effort. Its value will depend on whether recognition helps practitioners develop a useful habit—and whether the next generation of measures can demonstrate that the habit contributes to better-informed care.