In the eHealth system in Ukraine, for the first three days, 25 clinics were recruited in 15 cities
Twenty five medical institutions in 15 cities of Ukraine have already connected to the eHealth system in Ukraine. The first service of the system – the registration of primary care institutions – began operating on June 19. This was the first step towards the creation of a unified electronic healthcare system in Ukraine.
“We announce a marathon of connecting medical institutions to the electronic eHealth system. Soon primary care physicians will register patients in this system in order to receive payment from the state for the medical services provided,”- said the Acting Minister of Health of Ukraine Dr. Uliana Suprun. “The Ministry of Health together with the public, business, and international community fulfils its obligations to implement a medical reform. I again appeal to people’s deputies of Ukraine to accept the necessary package of bills as soon as possible so that we do not have to postpone the reform of the primary care. For our part, we will be fully prepared to launch it, including the electronic system.”
Medical institutions registration will be followed by registration of doctors and, consequently, patients. In the future, eHealth will create a single electronic medical card of a Ukrainian citizen that will help both in diagnosing and administering medical services.
“Why is the electronic system so important? Because eHealth will allow you to control how effectively the state spends budget funds on health care. For example, we will avoid ghost patients and doctors will work in an honest and fair environment without wage levelling. Good and talented doctors (there are a lot of them in our country) will have more patients and get more money for them from the state. Patients can also easily choose their doctors,” the Deputy Minister of Health Pavel Kovtoniuk said.
The international community is helping to launch the electronic system. The Canadian ambassador to Ukraine Roman Vashchuk announced that his government had provided financial support for the creation of eHealth. He said, “We support reforms in Ukraine and medical reform in particular, and we expect cooperation between the government, the Verkhovna Rada, business and civil society to ensure Ukrainians’ access to world-class medical care as soon as possible.”
The project office created by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, State Agency for e-Government Electronic Management, the Ukrainian representative office of the Transparency International Ukraine, and the largest patients’ organization in Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH, is working on the eHealth system. Today, 14 developers of medical information systems in Ukraine cooperate with this project office.
“It is no wonder that gifted Ukrainian IT specialists set an example for the whole world. They are able to create the best products. We gladly cooperate with all developers of high-quality IT solutions in the medical sphere. The structure of the eHealth system makes it easy to be connected by any available and new systems, while ensuring continuous service, security, and data confidentiality,” said the head of the eHealth Project Office Yurii Bugay. “MOH, business and the public jointly lay the foundation of the modern electronic system that will help to improve the level of medical care at the first stages. Provided that the Verkhovna Rada and the government will not maintain resistance, we will have a new success story for Ukraine next year.”
The chairman of the Coordinating Council of the All-Ukrainian Network of PLWH Dmytro Sherembey described the launch of the eHealth system and service of institutions registration as the first step towards the patient’s dream, the concept of “health in the palm”. “As a patients’ organization and as one of the initiators of this project, the Network of PLHIV always emphasizes the priority of quality and the convenience for patients. That is why, we will continue to work in the project office to realize this dream.” According to Dmytro, within a short period of time, the Project Office and the Ministry of Health made a big breakthrough that the medical community and patients awaited for a long time. “Deputies, do not destroy the dream!” D. Sherembey appealed.
Notes
The electronic health system or the eHealth system should bring the Ukrainian medicine to a new level. The goal of eHealth is to transfer all documents and processes of interaction in the healthcare sector from paper to electronic format, while creating unified registers of institutions, doctors, patients, medicines, etc.
According to the Memorandums of November 25, 2016, and December 22, 2016, initiated by the association of medical IT business, civil society, and experts, the first step is the implementation of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that will support the launch of the primary care reform and, subsequently, the process of reimbursing drug costs (reimbursement).
On March 16, 2017, as the result of memorandum of the Ministry of Health, the State Agency for e-Government Electronic Management, the NGO Transparency International Ukraine and the CF All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, the eHealth project office was created to coordinate implementation of electronic tools.
For more information, please contact us at info@ehealth-ukraine.org or visit http://www.ehealth-ukraine.org.
