The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the development of telemedicine and e-health in Poland. The introduction of e-prescriptions, e-referrals and e-waivers has certainly greatly facilitated the patient-doctor cooperation during the lockdown and limited access to facilities. What are the challenges facing telemedicine?
Challenges for telemedicine and e-health
The development of telemedicine and e-health in Poland is a bit slower than in other European countries, but this does not mean that we have been left behind. During the Economic Forum in Karpacz, experts considered what challenges the telemedicine system in Poland will face in the coming years, how to improve and popularize it in our country.
Marcin Bruszewski, Director General for Markets Direct CEE Philips Polska sp. Z oo noted that from the point of view of digitization and the development of new technologies, two or three years is, on the one hand, a lot of time, and on the other hand, this time will pass very quickly. What’s the priority?
— Legislation must keep pace with technological developments and that is what we should focus on. Technology is developing quickly, updates, improvements and new solutions appear every now and then. Legislation does not keep up with it and this is a big problem.
He also pointed out that in this process of creating telemedicine and the development of e-health, the patient and his needs should be kept in mind, because these solutions are to a large extent prepared for him.
– If we introduce a requirement, we must have a solution immediately – added Marcin Piskorski, president of the board of the PharmaNET Pharmaceutical Employers’ Association.
Piskorski focuses on education, because the new solution, no matter how good, will not work if patients do not know how to use them.
Gertruda Uścińska, president of the Social Insurance Institution, also pointed out that the main challenge is to ensure access to services in an efficient and safe manner. Technological progress should be used as an instrument to achieve overarching goals.
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Problems in telemedicine and e-health
Among the main problems mentioned by experts on the development of telemedicine and e-health, experts mentioned the digital exclusion of a part of society, aversion to new technologies, and the lack of education related to preparing patients to use e-health and telemedicine. But the problem of “embracing” e-health does not only concern people who are digitally excluded. Also people who freely move around the virtual world have a problem with it, because they do not see what possibilities they really have.
To find out the scale of the problem, it is enough to ask a larger group: who has ever logged in to the Patient Online Account? We encourage you to check what information is there.
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