By KYIV. Jan 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ministry of Health of Ukraine, together with the state-owned enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine, launched the e-Stock, a pilot system for accounting for medicines and medical devices, the main consumer of which is healthcare institutions, the government adopted relevant resolution No. 1483 on December 30.
"Through the e-Stock system, they (health care institutions) will submit requests for necessary medicines and medical devices that will be purchased at public expense. This will optimize the process of collecting needs, make it better and more systematic," the Ministry of Health said on its website.
The ministry said that at the first stage, the modules for collecting requests and managing users were launched. The goal of the pilot is to test and, if necessary, refine the functionality of collecting the necessary medicines and medical devices so that in the future it covers all medical goods purchased by Ukraine.
"Every year Ukraine allocates significant funds for the purchase of medicines, but patients do not always have information about their availability. On the other hand, the lack of an integrated system that allows tracking, evaluating purchases, distributing and accounting for medicines leads to gaps in planning. Therefore, the goal of introducing e-Stock is to improve the management of stocks of medicines and medical devices. Directly for patients, this is the availability of information about medicines," Deputy Minister of Health for Digital Development Maria Karchevych is quoted in the report.
According to Deputy Director General of Medical Procurement of Ukraine for the development of IT technologies Olena Zhuzha, earlier the need for medical goods that the state should purchase for Ukrainians was collected in most cases at the regional level, some goods were purchased by Medical Procurement of Ukraine, others by international specialized organizations.
"There was a lack of a solution that aggregated all this data at the level of the hospital user and standardized the collection of needs, regardless of who the buyer of a particular direction is. The e-Stock need collection functionality solves this problem. It will allow seeing the big picture and better plan the procurement process," the expert said.
The Ministry of Health said that in general, by the end of 2023, it is planned to complete all the functionality: procurement, logistics, balance accounting and public data modules. It is assumed that e-Stock will collect a full cycle of data on the circulation of medical goods. The system will aggregate information about needs, delivery, availability of drugs in hospitals, their use, disposal, etc.
According to the ministry, 162 health care institutions and health departments of the regional and Kyiv city military administrations are already connected to the system. They will submit medical supplies requirements for 2023 via e-Stock for adult oncology, endoprostheses and transplant kits.
The pilot system was launched with the support of international partners: the USAID Safe, Affordable and Effective Medicine for Ukrainians (SAFEMed) project and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
