Patients from the front-line territories of the Donetsk region receive consultations from medical specialists remotely.
The Ministry of Health reports this, Ukrinform reports.
“After the start of a full-scale war, tens of thousands of Ukrainians lost full access to medical care. For example, the opportunity to consult a specialist doctor today is not always available to patients living in front-line areas. However, modern technologies make it possible to overcome the barriers of war and bring doctors and patients closer together. An example is the experience of using telemedicine in one of the largest medical institutions in Donbass – Regional Medical Association of the city of Kramatorsk,” the message says.
Today the association includes the Center for Modern Oncology, the Center for Nephrology and Dialysis, the Center for Cardiac Surgery, the Diagnostic Center and auxiliary services. Before the start of a full-scale war, about a million Ukrainians from the Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov regions lived in the establishment’s service area. Now the hospital covers about 350 thousand patients who remain in the region.
In March last year, as part of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, the Kramatorsk medical association received a virtual presence device – the Teladoc robot, as well as access to the Solo telemedicine platform, which provides remote consultations between a patient and a doctor.
Since that time, the association began to actively deploy a telemedicine network. And since July last year, the solution has been integrated into the medical institution of Slavyansk.
The main request among patients – consultations with medical specialists – rheumatologist, endocrinologist, cardiologist, vascular surgeon, oncologist, hematologist, urologist, nephrologist and others.
Most of the association’s specialists moved to Lvov, Stryi, Kyiv, Kharkov and other cities with the outbreak of hostilities in the region, but continue to provide medical care to their patients despite hundreds of kilometers of distance. In addition, the institution is expanding its telemedicine network and attracting other specialists, access to which is practically impossible at the patient’s place of residence.
The Ministry of Health noted that 100% of remote consultations conducted on the basis of the Kramatorsk medical association Teladoc are recorded in the electronic health system (ESHS) through the medical information system – A separate department in the institution is responsible for this. In the future, the patient can continue treatment with another doctor, in another city, and the history of his visits will be displayed in the patient’s electronic medical record.
The implementation of the Teladoc telemedicine platform in healthcare institutions of Ukraine is carried out by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine with the support of the USAID project “Sustainable development of national healthcare systems in Ukraine” (LHSS).
As Ukrinform reported, as part of the National Strategy for creating barrier-free space and services in Ukraine, more than 2 thousand medical institutions are connected to high-speed Internet.