By January 31, 2020, all healthcare institutions must be connected to an electronic health system. Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk gave the relevant commission during a conference call on health issues today to the regional and Kyiv city state administrations.

As of April 1, 2020, changes are to trigger in the financing of specialized healthcare facilities – outpatient clinics and hospitals. Experience in the implementation at the primary healthcare level has shown that the change in the funding model proves successful. In certain regions, the salaries of family doctors amounted to UAH 25,000.

In order to successfully launch changes at the level of specialized healthcare and to sign an agreement with the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU), institutions providing specialized care must meet the requirements of the NHSU, namely: to be autonomous, have computers and be connected to the electronic healthcare system.

 “Ukrainians should have full access to state-guaranteed medical services. For a year at the primary healthcare level, the State has been paying for medical services to the citizens, instead of for maintaining hospitals. Specialized assistance will now be funded under this principle. And the objective for the local authorities is to help healthcare institutions prepare for the next stage of the reform. All establishments must be autonomous and provided with computers since they switch to funding from the second quarter of 2020 through an agreement with the National Health Service of Ukraine, "said Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk.

The Medical Guarantees Program will be fully operational in Ukraine in 2020. The sum worth UAH 72,000,000,000 has been planned in the State Budget. This is almost 64% of the total amount of funding spent on the healthcare system.

“Within the scope of the preparation for the introduction of the Medical Guarantees Program, about 73% of specialized medical care facilities have already been made autonomous. The largest number of such establishments is in Poltava (98.59%), Vinnytsia (97.69%), Kharkiv (93.64%), Odesa (90.53%) and Sumy (90.22%) regions. Only 33% of specialized institutions have been computerized. The leading regions are Poltava (66.02%), Chernihiv (56.38%) and Lviv (56.10%),” said Health Minister Zoriana Skaletska.

Heads of regional state administrations should report on the results to the Government by December 31, 2019.

Therefore, the participants of the teleconference emphasized that the local governments, as the owner of the medical institution, should allocate funds for the repair of the hospital, purchase the latest medical diagnostic equipment, take care of providing the institutions with medical personnel, etc. It is the proper condition of the healthcare facilities that will ensure the full range of services provision to patients at the appropriate level.