Frontiers in Public Health · Oct 30, 2026
Reverse the Odds: A National Primary Care-Embedded Cardiometabolic Risk Identification and Care Linkage Program in Saudi Arabia: An Early Implementation Evaluation
By Saad Albattal, Abdullah Alarifi, Amal Almughthim et al.
Background: Cardiometabolic disease prevention requires integrated approaches that connect risk identification with confirmation, care linkage, and long-term management within routine healthcare. Saudi Arabia developed the Reverse the Odds (RTO) program, a national electronic health record (EHR)-enabled initiative embedded in primary healthcare (PHC). This study describes the program and evaluates its early implementation using aggregate data. Program description and early implementation findings: RTO was implemented through all 20 health clusters and 2,048 activated PHC centers. The Phase 1 operational model used opportunistic cardiometabolic risk assessment during routine healthcare encounters, rather than universal screening of the general population, with diabetes and cardiovascular risk tools embedded in the national EHR. Positive findings triggered confirmatory assessment, referral, and multidisciplinary management, with eligible individuals entering structured lifestyle and/or medical pathways. Between July 2025 and March 2026, 911 certified health coaches were deployed nationwide. Among 632,948 adults in the Phase 1 operational target population, 580,941 (91.8%) responded to screening invitations, 498,096 (78.7% of the target population) attended a PHC visit, and 429,209 (67.8% of the target population) completed screening. Among screened individuals, 366,445 (85.4%) had at least one positive cardiometabolic finding, and 224,007 (61.1% of those with a positive finding) completed at least one follow-up visit, termed initial care linkage. Obesity was the most frequently detected condition, followed by hyperlipidemia, hypertension, prediabetes, and undiagnosed type 2 diabetes; 89.8% of individuals with a positive finding had two or more of the five cardiometabolic conditions/states assessed. These figures represent implementation detection yield within a selected, healthcare-engaged population and are not estimates of national disease prevalence. Implementation strategies included phased cluster onboarding, stakeholder engagement, patient outreach, EHR-based flagging, PHC activation, workforce deployment, dashboard monitoring, and workflow adaptation. Conclusions:The first nine months of RTO implementation show that an EHR-enabled cardiometabolic risk identification and care-linkage workflow was deployed at national health-system scale within the defined PHC rollout population. The evaluation describes reach, adoption, screening completion, detection yield and initial care linkage, but does not establish clinical effectiveness, sustained engagement, equity, or cost savings. Longitudinal evaluation is required to determine whether early implementation translates into durable clinical, behavioral, implementation, and economic outcomes.