The assessment of the electronic public health system under martial law

Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to substantiate methodological approaches to assessing and measuring the effectiveness of the current electronic healthcare system model under martial law in Ukraine, to preserve public health.Materials and methods. The substantiation of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of medical care organizations using an electronic system is based on risk factor and current challenge investigations in public health in Ukraine, as well as an analysis of regulatory documents, European, and global eHealth practices.Results. Under the current conditions of martial law in Ukraine, special attention is paid to the provision of medical care to internally displaced persons. The novelty of the study lies in the justification of the methodology for assessing the state of the electronic healthcare system by evaluating the compliance of actual service indicators with required standards.The authors propose a unique methodology for studying the modern national eHealth model. For its implementation, it is recommended to create the community medical registries to assess population appeals for primary, urgent, and emergency medical care; district-level medical registries based on premature mortality indicators to evaluate the quality of specialized, palliative, and rehabilitation medical care; and regional-level medical registries to assess citizens' disability status as important indicators for reducing the disease burden in the country.Conclusions. 1. Under the condition of martial law in Ukraine, it is relevant for the state to focus its efforts on accelerating the completion of software development to provide patients with access to their own electronic cabinet and the implementation of medical registries at the community, district, and regional levels. The use of the proposed assessment of the electronic health system will allow obtaining information about the real state of population access to medical services for taking necessary government measures.2. An important decision of the Ukrainian government is to promote the National Public Health System of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to be the Central Electronic Information Base on the health status of the country's population, bringing, together with the National Health Service of Ukraine, the electronic health system into compatibility with the electronic systems of EU countries based on international standards. This will significantly improve the quality of medical care, primarily for evacuated Ukrainian citizens who are in European and other countries around the world; the speed and timeliness of analysis and assessment of the health status of the country's population; and the development and adoption of effective government programs for the preservation of the nation's health.3. To launch the electronic healthcare system in a mode capable of ensuring the collection, analysis, and storage of information regarding patient visits for various forms of medical care based on electronic cards, state funding at the level of the National Health Service of Ukraine is required. 4. The decisive factors for the effectiveness of e-health in the organization of medical services will be the timely implementation of effective software, the support of professional computer literacy among medical personnel, and the population of the country as a whole.