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In just three years, Bulgaria managed to achieve full digital transformation in the healthcare sector. This was announced by Boris Kostadinov, Director of Software Integration at Information Services, during the Second International Conference on Technology and Innovation in Southeast Europe. The event, held in Thessaloniki yesterday, was organized by Cisco’s International Center for Digital Transformation and Digital Skills under the auspices of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Digital Governance of Greece. According to Kostadinov, very few countries in Europe can boast such success.
“In order to achieve digital transformation, a change in mindset from ‘paper’ to digital is needed, which can be done by increasing digital skills,” stated Valentin Mundrov, Minister of eGovernment.
Since December 2020, when the National Health Information System (NHIS) was launched by Information Services, an impressive 345 million electronic health records have been registered, making the platform one of the most used software products in Bulgaria. Nearly 45,000 medical professionals work with the system.
The total number of registered examinations in electronic format exceeded 96 million. The Information Services` data shows that an average of over 210,000 electronic examinations are registered daily from over 13,500 medical practices across the country.
Data shows that in less than three years, the total number of issued e-prescriptions has exceeded 54 million, with 3.2 million of them being so-called ‘white prescriptions’ for diabetes and antibacterial medicinal products for systemic use (antibiotics). The canceled ‘white’ prescriptions are only 3% of the issued electronic ‘white prescriptions,’ which shows that medical personnels successfully work with the e-prescriptions and have no problem with the digitalization of the process.
The ‘E-prescription’ module is effectively used by nearly 3,600 pharmacies nationwide and over 7,250 pharmacists. The online prescribing and dispensing system drastically reduces the risk of inappropriate dispensing of medicines and provides maximum facilitation to patients, doctors and pharmacists. By digitizing the process, the possibility of processing a wrong, duplicate, expired or fraudulent prescription is eliminated.
The e-Referral system, which was launched at the beginning of December 2020, also reports impressive results. More than 53.4 million e-referrals have been issued through the NHIS, which is an average of over 80,000 referrals per day. The number of e-hospitalizations exceeds 4.4 million. The module for electronic processing of admitted patients is used by 376 medical institutions in the country.
“Digitalization in healthcare significantly improves the transparency of processes and the quality of health services in Bulgaria”, Boris Kostadinov stated. According to him, digitalization is entirely aimed at protecting the rights of patients, who now can control the health system, protect it from abuse, and siphoning public funds.