Digitalisation in the service of medicine

Technology is now present in almost every aspect of life, including health care.

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Forum Ekonomiczne

Medycyna w parze z digitalizacją

Jedno z pytań, na jakie szukali odpowiedzi uczestnicy forum w Karpaczu, dotyczyło roli zarządzania danymi medycznymi. O wyzwaniach i barierach takich rozwiązań w Polsce rozmawiali prelegenci Salonu „Rzeczpospolitej”.

- Digitalisation is a challenge and, above all, a huge opportunity for health care systems in Poland and around the world. Further progress in sharing, collecting, and analysing medical data requires the involvement of all stakeholders in the exchange of experience, know-how, and public-private partnerships,” said Maciej Maksymilian Latos, CFO of Roche Polska. - At Roche, we always try to address the health care system challenges comprehensively. That is why, with regard to this particular area of health care, vitally important to the patient and the whole system, we also want to be a partner and support digitisation processes. New solutions, such as the IKP system [Patient’s Online Account] and its functionalities, successfully implemented by the Ministry of Health and Centrum e-Zdrowia [e-Health Centre], are impressive and show the potential for digitalisation in Poland. They lay the foundations for an increasingly strong and patient-friendly health care system, added Maciej Maksymilian Latos.

Information is the key

The discussion addressed legislation, including the European Health Data Space (EHDS) regulations on which the European Commission is working. This is the final stage of work. We support the change but also raise some objections. We have submitted dozens of pages with our comments as many areas need to be clarified and refined. Specifically, we pointed out that digital services of health care entities that are funded in one country cannot automatically be funded by other countries. The European Union cannot get involved in the funding of health systems in this particular case. This is the role of individual countries, said Maciej Miłkowski, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Health.

The exchange of information is essential not only for cross-border care but also the domestic health care system as it streamlines the processes. Centrum e-Zdrowia’s online database is constantly growing. They data are used, among others, for the day-to-day drug shortage management and the balanced supply of medicines to pharmacies. Medical records are also being expanded. The system is becoming more efficient, but we need to allocate adequate resources to manage this area of the health system, added the representative of Ministry of Health.

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Handel

Eksport zmienia szlaki i rośnie

Wyzwania polskich eksporterów w obliczu wojny, która zamknęła rynki eksportowe i sprowadziła kryzys do Europy, były tematem dyskusji ekspertów w Salonie „Rzeczpospolitej” w Karpaczu.

Andrzej Sarnowski, Deputy Director for Medical Information System Development and Implementation at Centrum e-Zdrowia, also referred to EHDS. Our efforts in collecting and exchanging data at the national level fall largely within the scope of EHDS. We should consider two dimensions when talking about digitisation, he said.

The first includes activities at the central level, implemented by the Ministry of Health. The second relates to the readiness and ability of health care entities to input information and build an exchange system for the benefit of all health care workers. It should be consistent and complementary so that the data entered in one place can be used effectively in another. We are conducting a study to verify the level of digitalisation in health care entities. We collect information on whether they have their own infrastructure or use IT systems and to what extent. A lot of credit for this goes to the Ministry of Health for allocating a lot of resources to raise the level of digitalisation, said Andrzej Sarnowski.

The panel also discussed the challenges facing the National Health Fund. Dr Małgorzata Gałązka-Sobotka, Deputy President of the Council of the National Health Fund, referred to the wealth of data resources in the possession of the National Health Fund. She stressed that thanks to their effective management, it is possible to optimise decisions on the allocation of resources and the organisation of the health system, thus promoting health measures and savings in the system so that patients can receive better quality care.

When it comes to data access and analysis, we still have a long way to go. We still use traditional files with medical records. The patient should be the biggest beneficiary of digitalisation. Medical data is the property of the patient, but we should ensure that it is arranged for use in a way more friendly to them. This is not the case so far. The National Health Fund has undergone a huge transformation in making data available in the public domain. Our team of analysts prepares information analyses on a regular basis and engages experts to take a critical look at the collected data, said Małgorzata Gałązka-Sobotka.

Far from perfect

She also pointed out that at almost every meeting closing a calendar year, the Council of the National Health Fund requests the Ministry of Health and politicians to increase analytical human resources and tools.

The optimistic vision of the National Health Fund was confronted with a subtle statement by Prof. Piotr Rutkowski, President of the Polish Oncology Society. According to him, health system employees are only able to assess 40% of the indicators at the moment as the data is not structured. Other problems, as noted by the Piotr Rutkowski, include the legal environment preventing the exchange of individual data, even between public institutions, and the data quality, as the data is often encoded in different formats difficult to handle.

Work in Poland is moving in the right direction but it is not perfect. From our point of view, the results of mammography, for example, should be available in one place so that the work of the centres in terms of interval cancers can be evaluated. We need tools to analyse the indicators of our procedures, organise and cleanse the data, and establish algorithms. Artificial intelligence is useful here. Data quality should be monitored and subjected to specific analyses. I think setting up the teams supporting the National Health Fund is necessary, said Piotr Rutkowski.

Digitalisation is a challenge and, above all, a huge opportunity for health care systems, said Maciej Maksymilian Latos from Roche Polska

Foto: Mariusz Szachowski, fototaxi.pl

Dr Radosław Sierpiński, President of the Medical Research Agency pointed out another aspect, which is data security. In his opinion, there is no certainty about who owns the data and who manages it and this is unacceptable. He believes that transparency is a huge challenge here.

The support is needed for the business perspective (so that entrepreneurs can better plan their activities) and the scientific perspective (to help implement specific solutions). For various reasons, we are trying to combine two things, i.e. the patient perspective (data sharing) and the system perspective (large volumes of data used for analytics and decision-making). The National Health Fund has generated 6.5 billion records in recent years and this volume is growing every year. These resources should lay the foundations for decision-making and policy shaping in the system, including the health ministry. I think we are doing a lot at the Agency. We see that digitisation and digitalisation are a priority. We will watch to see how things develop for the next few years, said Radosław Sierpiński.

Dorota Korycińska, President of the National Federation of Oncology, presented the patient’s perspective. In her opinion, the patient still does not fully understand what medical data is.

Extensive education is needed. Patients should be explained what their data is used for, why collecting it is so important, and how it can be used. It is also necessary to guarantee their security. Even today, Internet users sometimes share medical data with one another, asking for interpretation. Also, sometimes we can see forum users asking if it is possible to request examination results from a doctor as not everyone is familiar with digitalisation, said Dorota Korycińska.

She also noted that more knowledge would foster the development of specific therapies in patients with rare diseases. She believes that the key thing is to convince the public that everyone will benefit from the data analysis sooner or later.

Required competencies

It was also highlighted that it is impossible to separate medicine from technology and cease to implement digitalisation.

We must remember that the data management is indispensable in modern medicine. Roche sees two areas to improve. The first is data quality, data structuring, and choosing the right format. We need interoperability to unleash the enormous potential that lies in data, including research development opportunities, faster implementation of new therapies for patients, and the day-to-day management of the health system in diagnostics and therapeutics. The second area is the environment, its broader sense, promoting new IT systems and digitalisation. Education is vitally essential for strengthening confidence in new solutions. This includes raising digital competencies with respect to medical staff, patients, and all stakeholders. Finally, digitalisation also means the right technical architecture and regulations that allow secure access to data and its efficient use, concluded Maciej Maksymilian Latos.