KYIV. Feb 18 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The introduction of an electronic health system (EHS) in medical facilities, regardless of their type of ownership, stimulates the development of healthcare in Ukraine and allows for efficient use of financial resources, according to participants in a roundtable talk held at the Interfax-Ukraine press center on Thursday.

At the same time, Oleksandra Mashkevych, Head of the Medical Directorate of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, emphasized the obligation to connect medical facilities to the electronic health system.

"Connecting to the EHS is one of the conditions for working in the modern world. If you are not connected to the EHS, then you actually drop out of the process, you don't know how your country lives," she said.

Mashkevych said that as of the beginning of the year, the EHS had more than 500 million electronic medical records created by doctors, more than 36.6 million e-prescriptions issued to patients for drugs under the Affordable Medicines program, and over 90 million electronic referrals, prescribed by primary and specialized care physicians.

"Every day the system is filled with almost 3 million medical records, tens of thousands of prescriptions, referrals, medical findings," the expert stated.

At the same time, she recalled that from 2022, all medical facilities engaged in medical practice, regardless of their form of ownership, will work in the electronic health system.

"Soon all healthcare institutions in Ukraine will maintain medical records in an electronic database and registers. This is necessary to continue the changes that we started back in 2017, when we launched the healthcare reform," Mashkevych explained.

In turn, Head of the Consultative and Diagnostic Center of Dniprovsky district of Kyiv Daniel Karabayev said that the effective work of the medical facility was largely ensured by the effectiveness of a medical information system (MIS).

"Thanks to cooperation with the medical information system Medstar, we have experience in creating an electronic management system for a medical facility. And today, our doctors do not just enter relevant information about patients, but have modern analytics, recent information, opportunities and leverage to influence certain processes," he said.

An effective MIS that automates analytics makes it possible to effectively manage a medical institution, generate resources for its development and increase salaries for medical and non-medical personnel, Karabayev emphasized.

In turn, Olena Ambarna, Director General of the municipal non-profit enterprise Polyclinic Association of Kropyvnytsky City Council, which is also connected to the MIS Medstar, noted the advantages of working with the EHS.

"Our MIS allows us to compare the load on each doctor, which allows us to influence the process of treating patients. Considering the structure of our medical institution, I am able, thanks to the system, to move doctors from one institution to another. This would not be possible if I did not have a system, thanks to which this can be done easily without leaving the office," Ambarna said.

According to her, thanks to the MIS used, the medical institution can effectively plan and calculate the work of both individual employees and the entire clinic, and contract for the most popular packages of medical services under the Medical Guarantee Program (MGP).

It was also noted that the Consultative and Diagnostic Center of Dniprovsky district of Kyiv and the Polyclinic Association of Kropyvnytsky City Council used the Medstar medical information system in their work with the EHS, which, among other things, allowed them to enter the top five in the rating of "leaders" of interaction with the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU).

In turn, the head of the subcommittee on health issues of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Health, Medical Assistance and Medical Insurance, Maksym Perebiynis, believes that the EHS will help control not only the quantity, but also the quality of medical services.

"There is still no full-fledged mechanism for monitoring the provision of medical services. It is the connection of medical institutions of any type of ownership to the EHS that is a very important detail. Some clinics are used to working in their own closed system, but we must understand that people should receive a high-quality transparent service," Perebiynis believes.

He also stressed that Ukraine would maintain a strategic direction for reforming the healthcare system and the formation of a single medical space.