From Clinics to Homes: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Care in Oman by 2050

At-home care technologies can serve Oman as a pragmatic and affordable way to push the health system toward sustainability under the national net-zero target for 2050.

This article takes a technical perspective and outlines an Oman-centric blueprint for an at-home care platform that combines telemedicine and remote patient monitoring (RPM). It shows sustainability gains such a platform can unlock, as well as how it fits Oman’s health system by using systems already in service nationwide and engaging multiple Oman healthcare stakeholders.

How Would It Work in Oman?

The design was shaped by solution architects at ScienceSoft, a healthcare IT consultancy, drawing on their experience with private and government health institutions across the Gulf. The proposed platform covers remote consultations, continuous monitoring of chronic disease patients, hospital-at-home episodes for clinically stable patients, and prevention programs. It can be run as a pilot at a single clinic and grow to a governorate network without rewrites because it stands on Oman’s national rails, which are already in service.

Below is the software stack that makes up the core of the platform.

• Telemedicine services: High-quality video appointments and secure messaging with visit notes and care plan tracking reduce the number of in-person visits. For public providers, the service can rely on the existing Shifa Virtual Clinic, so scheduling, consultation, and documentation follow patterns clinicians already use.
• RPM services: Home devices (e.g., blood-pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, or glucometers) collect and send vitals through a mobile app or a compact gateway, with validation at the edge to filter noise, safe buffering when connectivity drops, and automatic synchronization to keep a continuous clinical timeline.
• Clinical workspace: A role-based web console allows nurses and physicians to review RPM data, start patient outreach, and arrange follow-ups, with cohort-specific dashboards that surface rule-based RPM alerts. An AI agent can be added for reminders and short symptom checks with patients: it will take over the majority of routine conversations but transfer patients to a nurse whenever uncertainty appears.
• Integration layer: Encounter summaries and structured observations are sent from the telemedicine and RPM apps to Al Shifa or other EHRs. The integration layer also retrieves medication, allergy, and recent lab records and presents them in the clinician workspace to prevent duplicate orders and tests. Episodes are translated into claim and utilization events and sent to Dhamani, so payers receive context for reimbursement and audit.
• Patient application: An Arabic-first app is the primary patient access point for appointment scheduling, reminders, education, and consent collection, with clear prompts and fast access to help. Public providers can route patients through the Shifa app so all touchpoints remain in one place.
• Security and privacy: Explicit consent capture, role-based access, encryption at rest and in transit, and audit trails apply across telemedicine sessions and data flows and updates, aligned with Oman’s PDPL Law 6 of 2022 and 2024 Executive Regulations and hosted under MTCIT Cloud First.

Implementation scenarios for early success

Below are three possible implementation patterns that return value early as they map to Oman’s pressure points: a rising load of non-communicable diseases (NCD), pressure on hospital capacity, and gaps in care access for patients outside Muscat.

1. NCD follow-ups

The proposed solution shifts routine patient monitoring to their homes, where RPM devices, such as blood pressure monitors or glucometers, collect and transmit vitals to the doctors at the clinic. Both patients and physicians can initiate short teleconsultations when RPM readings rise or fall beyond the agreed threshold, which reduces NCD deterioration between visits and cuts preventable admissions.

As an example, this RPM+telehealth solution can be implemented by private providers who want to strengthen patient retention, with the support of insurers seeking fewer high-cost NCD acute episodes. Pharmacies and labs can handle device kit hand-off and gain additional traffic. Employers can also be engaged, as they value fewer workdays lost, so insurers can recommend providers that demonstrate stronger chronic care outcomes.

2. Post-discharge check-ins

This schema supports a check-in period after discharge, where patients use home devices and short symptom prompts while a nurse hub reviews RPM alerts and triggers teleconsultations when needed. This steadies recovery, reduces emergency readmissions, and protects hospital capacity.

Public hospitals may be interested in this model as they face pressure from limited staff and bed capacity. To extend care into patients’ homes, they can partner with home health providers, which benefit by adding billable services.

3. Rural primary health care(PHC) outreach

The scheme extends primary care to remote communities through a simple hybrid flow. A virtual consultation starts at the local PHC or a trusted community point; nearby pharmacies or labs capture vitals and issue RPM device kits from a shared pool, and a central nurse hub screens RPM data against predefined thresholds and prompts a clinician review.

This way, public PHC lifts the completion of follow-ups per clinician hour, central hospitals face fewer late escalations from remote areas, and home health deploys field staff where need is objective and travel is justified. Private providers can also engage in the program to add reimbursable touchpoints in underserved towns without opening new sites.

Why Does It Matter?

Oman has committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, which sets a clear expectation for measurable cuts across health services. The health sector’s footprint is significant at about 4.4% of global net emissions according to the “Health Care Without Harm” report, the most comprehensive international assessment to date, which places health care on par with the world’s fifth-largest emitter when treated as a single economy. One proven lever is to shift suitable activity from facilities to homes with at-home care technologies to trim the emissions tied to travel and non-essential in-person encounters, as underscored by the WHO’s operational framework for low-carbon health systems.

A 2025 BMJ Innovations analysis shows what this shift can deliver value at scale. Researchers compared inpatient treatment with home-based virtual care for more than 1,200 patients across an acute hospital trust. They found that an inpatient bed day produced 37.9 kilograms of CO₂, while a home-monitored day produced only 8.8 kilograms (around a 76% reduction) with clinical outcomes maintained and more than 280 tons of CO₂ avoided in one year.

The Context

Oman already has the digital rails that make at-home care systems feasible:

• National EHR Al Shifa: Tele-visit notes and remote-monitoring summaries can be recorded in the existing patient chart. Clinicians adjust treatment using home data inside the system they already trust. No parallel records.
• Shifa Virtual Clinic and Shifa app: Remote consultations and follow-ups can use an approved channel with familiar scheduling and documentation, so teams extend current workflows instead of learning a new platform, and patients stay inside a familiar app.
• National insurance exchange Dhamani: Remote encounters and monitoring episodes can map to standard claim and utilization events. Providers are reimbursed, and payers can track outcomes without bespoke agreements.
• National ID: Identity checks work the same way in the app, at pharmacy pickup, and at the start of a tele-visit. Enrollment into an at-home monitoring program is quick and reliable.

With these elements already in service, Oman can expand care into homes in a realistic way that advances the country’s low-carbon commitment, as well as supports Vision 2040 goals for technology-enabled, decentralized, high-quality healthcare.

Analyzed by Hadeel Abu Baker, Senior Healthcare IT Consultant at ScienceSoft