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Telemedicine technologies and services can significantly improve access to health services for people with limited mobility, as well as for patients living in remote regions of the country. This was stated by Deputy Minister for digital development, digital transformation and digitalization Maria Karchevych during a working meeting on the development of telemedicine in Ukraine.

Due to the introduction of telemedicine technologies and services, doctors will be able to consult with patients remotely, quickly exchange information, hold consultations in the form of video conferences and quickly make decisions in critical situations.

“Telemedicine technologies should be considered as an integral part of the digital tools that we are currently implementing in the healthcare system and adapted to eHealth”, said Maria Karchevych, Deputy Minister of health of Ukraine for digital development, digital transformation and digitalization.

In addition, in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, online tools can solve new important tasks, namely, to guarantee safe contact between doctors and patients, without restricting the latter in the timely and high-quality provision of medical services.

“World practice on the example of the COVID-19 pandemic proves that telemedicine is a really effective tool in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of patients. This is a synergy of modern information technologies and medical care, which contributes to the creation of a new quality of medical services”, said Vadym Terentiuk, head of the project and program management department of the state enterprise “Electronic Health”.

The electronic healthcare system already uses some of these services in some regions of Ukraine and shows its effectiveness. In particular, according to the acting chairman of the National Health Service Dmytro Samofalov, with the launch of telemedicine technologies in the Odessa oblast, not only the rates of heart attacks outside the therapeutic window have decreased, but also the quality of their treatment in general has improved.

That is why the Ministry of Health, with the support of stakeholders and foreign partners, plans to continue implementing the latest technologies in the healthcare system.

“In this direction, it is planned to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Health in forming a vision and roadmap for the development of telemedicine. The second goal is to expand access to medical services for the most affected groups of citizens”, said Oleh Semeryk, consultant of the LHSS project in Ukraine.

We remind that from the first of October, Ukraine completely switched to electronic sick leave.