By the new act on digital healthcare, the Ministry of Health commits itself to create a digital environment, which will enable sharing health records. All interaction between patients, medical professionals and insurance companies will become more efficient and faster, whereby emphasis will be placed on cyber security and data protection. “The state will not create any megalomaniac centralised project but it will ensure the corner stones for digitalisation that will enable a gradual introduction and realisation of purposeful and efficient partial projects,” Filip Vrubel explained the intentions of the ministry at the Future of Pharmaceutical Industry and Health Care conference organised by Deloitte. He added that the purpose of the strategy is to create an inter-operational and reliable environment for all health care entities, not introduce new obligations.

What will the eHealth act include?

The new act introduced information data interface of the health care department using ISVS (information system of public administration) and focuses on the following topics:

• Authoritative registers of healthcare service providers, healthcare workers and patients
• Supplementary register to authoritative register of patients
• Health care documentation index
• Register of rights and authorisations
• Emergency records
• Exchange system with temporary storage of medical documentation
• Identification of health care workers and patients
• National contact point for electronic health care
• Patient Summary
• Personal health record of patients

“At first we must create an infrastructure for digitalisation – we must set rules for sharing information, create a functional inter-operational environment and support the availability of health documentation for patients,” Filip Vrubel described the main role of the act. If the project is realised successfully, the most important benefits brought by it will include the increase of health care quality, simplified access to data, accelerated and increased efficiency of the whole system, strengthened legal certainty as well as for example, gradual elimination of birth numbers.

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Digitalisation of Health Care Prior to eHealth

Since 2016, the Ministry of Health has been focusing on reliable identification of patients, healthcare workers and providers and other entities as well as the sharing of information about health care across the whole sector. Digitalisation of health records and creation of a national health information portal are viewed as a solution. This is why projects and services like ePreskripce (electronic prescription), eNeschopenka (electronic sick certificate) or Patient Summary were given a green light. The new eHealth act points a new direction and gives the project a clearer definition.

Nevertheless, health care digitalisation is just one of the seven strategic goals that the Ministry of Health aims to achieve in the coming years as part of health care development. The remaining goals include a reform of primary care, primary and secondary disease prevention, implementation of models of integrated care, integration of health and social care, a reform of mental health care, personal stabilisation, optimisation of health care compensation system and involvement of science and research in the solution of priority health care tasks.

Would you like to learn more about the future of health care? Download the Deloitte study 2020 Global Healthcare Outlook and 2020 Global Life Sciences Outlook