Astana, 4 November, . The health ministry has published a map for the digital transformation of healthcare up to 2027: artificial intelligence will help doctors read scans, and all of a patient’s medical data will be gathered in one repository, writes Inbusiness.kz, which has studied the document.
The document names a Single Medical Data Repository as the main technological step: until now more than 20 poorly connected information systems have operated in the country, and from now on clinical data will follow the patient to another city or a private clinic. By 2027 telemedicine is to cover up to 70% of rural settlements, and 85% of the population will use electronic personal accounts. Under the document, AI systems will analyse CT, MRI and X-ray images. Drug labelling and blockchain-based tracking will, the ministry forecasts, cut the risk of counterfeit medicines in pharmacies by 90%, and 80% of pharmacies will join the single tracking system.
One of the document’s targets is a rise in life expectancy to 75.1 years. The publication does not say how much the programme costs or who will implement it.
What it means: Healthcare is moving from scattered certificates to a single digital patient record, and AI is becoming a second opinion for diagnosticians.
Who benefits: Rural patients who will get consultations without travelling, those who change clinic or city, and heavily loaded radiologists; how medical data in the single database will be protected is not explained in the publication.
Background: Digital labelling of medicines with DataMatrix codes already operates in Kazakhstan; the map extends it to full tracking.
