Share
General practitioners and outpatient specialists now have the opportunity to issue electronic referrals for all medical diagnostic activities. They completely replace the paper equivalent, which have been used so far. The experts of Information Services have introduced in the National Health Information System (NHIS) over 900 codes for various tests and the module for issuing electronic referrals for medical diagnostic activities now operates at its full functional capacity.
By now, electronic referrals have been issued only for laboratory procedures related to COVID-19.The new functionality of the system enables the laboratories to send the test results directly to the NHIF and they are available in the electronic health record of the patient. The data from the e-health record can be accessed only by a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) and are available to the patient at any time of the day."By integrating all the codes for medical-diagnostic activities in the system, we have made another successful step in building e-health in Bulgaria," The Information Services`CEO Ivaylo Filipov stated. According to him, e-referrals save a lot of time and costs for patients, doctors and laboratories and significantly increase the quality of medical services.
Since the launch of the e-referral module in early December 2020, over 380,000 electronic documents have been issued. Almost 3,600 general practitioners work with the system, and the biggest number of referrals were issued in Sofia, Plovdiv, Burgas and Varna. A total of 302,000 patients have received their referrals electronically.