Digitalized rehabilitation system to start operating in Ukraine

Due to the war in Ukraine, the number of wounded defenders, as well as civilians, is growing, who need further comprehensive rehabilitation to recover and return to full-fledged active life. That is why the state takes care of ensuring modern, evidence-based and effective rehabilitation, access to which should be free of bureaucracy and unnecessary paperwork for all Ukrainians who need it. To do this, the entire process of patient rehabilitation will be accompanied in the electronic healthcare system (EHCS) in the spring. First of all, this will allow storing relevant data about the patient's health in a single place – an electronic card. In other words, the patient will no longer need to search, collect and store the paper certificates provided for in this process for years.

“This approach will ensure reliable storage of patients’ medical data, make it impossible to lose them, and enable medical professionals and rehabilitation teams anywhere in the country to access them with the patient’s consent,” comments Mariia Karchevych, Deputy Minister of Health for digital development. “That is, if the patient is directed to another medical institution, they will not have to take all the medical documents from the previous place of rehabilitation with them – all the necessary information will be available in their electronic medical card.”

At the first stage of digitalization, doctors of physical and rehabilitation medicine, as well as physical therapists and occupational therapists, will enter all medical information about rehabilitation interventions, examination results, and other necessary data in the EHCS. This will allow full and reliable storing of medical data on rehabilitation and the patient’s health status, and electronic tools will ensure transparency, controllability, and, most importantly, high efficiency of rehabilitation care.

“Electronic documentation of rehabilitation care is an important part of the changes that we are currently working on,” says Tetiana Lomakina, adviser to the President of Ukraine on barrier – free issues. “Together with the introduction of the International Classification of Functioning, the organization of multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams, re-equipment and new equipment in hospital departments, this will allow people who have suffered war injuries to recover faster and more efficiently.”

The development of this functionality in the EHCS, in particular, is implemented within the framework of the project “Rehabilitation of war injuries in Ukraine”, which is implemented by the charity foundation “Patients of Ukraine” with the support of Switzerland and the European Union. 

It should be recalled that recently the government has regulated the procedure for providing rehabilitation assistance in particular, providing victims of russia’s armed aggression with medical devices, including auxiliary rehabilitation equipment, at all stages of recovery. 

At the moment, the state provides a full range of medical and rehabilitation assistance for everyone who suffered as a result of the war. Thus, rehabilitation is free of charge and guaranteed by the state in medical institutions that have been contracted with the National Health Service of Ukraine under the package “Rehabilitation assistance for adults and children in inpatient settings”.