site.btaE-Government Minister Yolovski: Digitization in Healthcare Moves at Right Pace

Digitization in healthcare in terms of IT, records, data, services is going at the right pace and the results are very good. This is also visible at international level. When comparing access to patient records at European level, Bulgaria's result is above the European average, said e-Government Minister Alexander Yolovski during the XI National Pharma Forum of the "Manager" magazine. According to him, a "lion's leap" has been made in the field of healthcare in terms of digitization.

“I hope that today the number of electronic time stamps in the National Health Information System (NHIS) will reach 1.5 billion. This is the basis of the digital transformation,” said Yolovski. This system was launched in December 2020, he recalled. “We are aware that a large number of white prescription drugs are not yet e-prescribed, but when this happens, all therapeutic treatment will be inside,” the Minister noted.

The NHIS was one of the priorities that showed there was a national consensus, he stressed. “The figures are extremely encouraging to me - there are 80 million examinations in the NHIS, 45 million referrals, 45-47 million prescriptions,” the Minister further announced. However, this system does not exhaust e-healthcare, Yolovski added. The state has decided to leave the development of the pharmacy system, the hospital system, the systems of laboratories, general practitioners, dentists to private companies by simply building one central component,” he also said.

Digitization is the way to provide equal access to healthcare, to make it safer, and to integrate quality, said the deputy chairman of the parliamentary health committee Alexander Simidchiev. Digitization in health care is underway, and things have changed considerably, according to the Executive Director of the Executive Agency for Medicines Bogdan Kirilov.