The first meeting of the representatives of public health institutions, organized at the initiative of the Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalization, Iurie Turcanu, took place today, 26 October, with the participation of e-Governance Agency. The purpose of the meeting was to consult the opinion of specialists and to discuss the measures required to build a unified government information system, generically called e-HEALTH.

The initiative comes after last week the official had a meeting with the representatives of the Association of Employers of Private Health Institutions of Moldova, where they discussed a number of challenges faced by the health system in terms of medical statistics, records, collection and exchange of data, as well as current obstacles to monitoring health processes and activities that need to be removed through digitization.

In today's meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister talked about the discussions he had with the specialists managing health information systems, adding that he is aware of the deficiencies related to the lack of qualified human resources in the IT area, insufficient regulatory framework, lack of a single centre for the management and coordination of the current information systems and called for a concept to be created as soon as possible, with a clear vision and concrete objectives to build an integrated e-health information system.

Iurie Turcanu: “It is the best time to intensify our work. The pandemic has opened our eyes to the chaos in the digital instruments. Nor is there a legal framework that could ensure the system's resilience and sustainability of processes. Digitalization and health are two top priorities, and in parallel with the fight against the effects of the pandemic, we need to think about how to build sound resilience in the health care sector. We are willing to take over some international standards in the field, to adapt them and to have a closer collaboration with the development partners who are interested in this subject”.

The participants concluded that, in the current circumstances, when the society is facing a deep pandemic crisis, the need to make the information circuit in the health system more transparent and efficient is fully acknowledged. Unfortunately, there is no efficient communication between the existing information systems and the capacity and infrastructure are missing, which results in a number of deficiencies on the part of the information circuit and access to data.

The Director of e-Governance Agency, Olga Tumuruc, reconfirmed the institution's commitment to provide full information and technological support to the creation and implementation of all the necessary digital tools in the process of e-transformation of the health sector.

The Secretary of State of the Ministry of Health, Zinaida Bezverhnii, said that the basic objectives of the institution are the development of an e-health centre under the Ministry, the implementation of the patient's e-file, e-prescription and other digital projects that would add value to the health care sector.

Subsequent activities to be carried out to ensure the continuity of this collaboration on the digital dimension include a wider dialogue with all stakeholders, including donors, agreeing on a new concept with a clear vision of the new e-health information system, an evaluation-expertise of the current situation, a feasibility study, a roadmap with concrete objectives to which all stakeholders would align.

The participants appreciated the systemic approach adopted by the current Government to the concept of digitalization and the high-level coordination of this process, explaining that this will create a synergy between the public, private and non-governmental sectors in the implementation of digital projects expected by the society.