Towards Sustainable And Personalized Healthcare
Development of e-Health in EECA is in line with the global trend of medical services informatization. Furthermore, it also results from the need for telemedicine since most of EECA countries demonstrate vast spatial dimensions or have regions that are difficult to access (or both). As a result, there is strong demand in professional medical services in remote or rural areas, than only telemedicine could provide.
The ‘National Health Programme’ initiated by ex-president Putin provides US$1.7 billion to build 15 specialized health centers. The program acknowledges the importance of information and communication technologies in meeting specific challenges of the healthcare sector. Health research is positioned as one of three strategic areas for cooperation with the European Union.
This ICT domain intersects with the focus area of “Medicine of the Future” Technology Platform.
The list of areas most profitable for cooperation includes Advanced patient-specific computer modeling and simulation and the Security of patient-specific data that contribute to reducing global market fragmentation and lack of interoperability through standardization and certification.
The health market in Russia offers huge potential and is set to grow at an unprecedented rate. The Russian market for medical technology is worth US$2 billion a year and is growing by about 15% per annum. European IT providers can strengthen their presence in Russia’s healthcare market.
In 2011 the government approved creation of “Medicine of the Future” Technology platform as well two RTPs on biology and related sciences. We can expect rapid advance in the area of ICT for Health thanks to new level of cooperation and integration in Russia that RTP should provide.
Distinguished R&D institutions:
- Saint-Petersburg State University
- Program Systems Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences
- Kharkevich Institute for information transmission problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Some instrumental environments are developed in Armenia to support for people with reduced motor functions and compensate their human capabilities, for example the systems for blind people to teach them working methods with different computer programs.
ICT for Health is included into the list of the critical technologies of the Belarus. Several leading research centers of the National Academy of Science of Belarus are oriented towards research in this field. Now in Belarus realize the state scientific-engineering programme Medical and Diagnostic Technologies.
Additionally the potential for collaboration in this area is highly significant since Belarus has a long history in e-health. Starting from 1999 bio and medical information systems were under development in several institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Belarusian State University and the universities and medical research institutions of the Ministry of Healthcare of Belarus.
The soft-hardware and administrative system of the hospital for collecting and processing the information for diagnostic and treatment was developed and implemented. The system covers all departments of a hospital allowing the creation of comprehensive information diagnostic environment for high-quality medical care for patients and day-to-day management of medical subdivisions, to solve the problems of remote control, observation, diagnostics and on-line exchange of medical information.
In the frame of cooperation with European institutions, the methods and infrastructure of telemedicine started to be realized in Belarusian healthcare. Telemedicine system of digital fluorography provides the services on tele-interpretation and tele-consultation of images of radiation diagnostics, the consultations about radiation diagnostics for medical recreation centres, the radiation diagnostics images interpretation and submission to avoid the trip of specialists to the place of examination.
Moreover, along with the institutions of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus many clinics and hospitals of Belarus took part in the development of medical information systems.
Distinguished R&D institutions:
- United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (UIIP NASB)
There are significant number of ICT organizations and private companies who are engaged into development of Electronic Health applications in Ukraine. These applications are mostly in the fields of telemedicine, e-health, medical informatics and cybernetics. R&D projects in e-medicine are related to computerization of health care and based on advanced information technologies and intelligent systems for computer-assisted diagnosis in public health services. One of the priority areas of e-medicine in Ukraine is the development of a remote patient monitoring system.
E-medicine is one of the priority development areas for Ukraine according to the Law of Ukraine “on the main basis of Information society development in Ukraine 2007-2015”.
Significant numbers of ICT R&D organisations and private companies in Ukraine have developed several systems for medical applications; among the most recognizable: Ukrainian Association for Computer Medicine (UACM), Research-and Production Firm GRIS, RAMED Ltd.-Centre of Radiophysical Methods of Diagnosis and Therapy.
Ukrainian telemedicine website counts fourteen telemedicine centres and twenty-three institutions which carry out “teleconsultations”. There is also “Association for Ukrainian Telemedicine and Health and e-Health Development” that was created aimed at the effective development and introduction of professional activity in fields of telemedicine, e-health, medical informatics and cybernetics.
Since 2005 the Ministry of Public Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan is implementing the project “Development of Telemedicine in Rural Public Health”. This ultimate goal of the project is to envelop all Republic regions with telemedicine services with the network of telemedicine services, diagnostic and medical equipment being developed in Kazakhstan. Project will be enlarged and continue to develop.
At present the functioning of the telemedicine network in Karaganda and West Kazakhstan regions is realized with the instrumentality of France satellite Eutelsat. At the following stages of the project realization it is planned to transfer the network to ground communication channels.
This direction is developing, Governmental Program is decided and sufficient budget is allocated. The market for health service in Kazakhstan is set to grow. European IT specialists can strengthen their presence in Kazakhstan’s healthcare market.
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