Our goal is to introduce leading international experience in establishing high-quality primary healthcare in the rural areas. The experience of international partner countries in the organisation of telemedicine and its network use, development of equipment and software requirements, and training of family doctors are among the priority areas of cooperation, as defined in the Memorandum of Understanding between MinRegion, the Ministry of Health, the World Bank and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development of Canada, commented Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister – Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine, on the results of signing of the Memorandum.

According to him, today, 30% of the Ukraine’s population, living in rural areas, need a quality healthcare. MinRegion, together with the Ministry of Health, has already developed methods for the formation of the healthcare network; requirements for the premises and their number for the primary healthcare to be provided; route map for local governments to create a network.

“The international experience of the partner countries is another step towards the introduction of modern and high-quality healthcare in the rural areas. Both the World Bank and the Government of Canada are prepared to help us in this. By the end of the year, we plan to launch the first examples of new healthcare in the regions,” emphasised Hennadii Zubko.

The Vice Prime Minister stressed that the signed Memorandum will promote the establishment of procedures and communication platform for doctors, the system of communication between patient and doctor, development of approaches to family doctors training.

The expressed his gratitude to the World Bank and the Government of Canada for their cooperation in implementing rural healthcare reform and support for sectoral decentralisation.

Reference:

At the end of 2017, the Law of Ukraine “On improving the accessibility and quality of healthcare in rural areas” was adopted.

The purpose of the Memorandum is to determine the directions of cooperation on the following issues:

• analysis of experience of other countries regarding the diagnostics of the exchange of medical research data through telecommunication facilities;

• organisation of telemedicine and its network use;

• creation of an electronic database of medical data and exchange of medical information;

• development of requirements for equipment and software;

• training of family doctors for them to work with medical equipment with telecommunication capabilities and software;

• creation of a “Book of Standards (Recommendations)” on the requirements of primary healthcare in the rural areas;

• communication and marketing strategy to improve the availability and quality of provision of primary healthcare in the rural areas;

• proposals for the projects of reuse, study of experience of construction and reconstruction of institutions providing primary healthcare in the European and other countries.