The heads of two ministries met to discuss measures that would address the issues of the E-health system
Minister of Health Marija Jakubauskienė and Vice-Minister Daniel Naumovas met with Minister of Economy and Innovation Edvinas Grikšas and Vice-Minister Darius Zailskas in response to the recent disruptions in the E-health system, which prevented patients from smoothly receiving healthcare services in medical institutions and hindered the ability of medical staff to work.
The E-health system is currently operating stably. Nevertheless, the heads of the Ministries of Health and of Economy and Innovation discussed what measures should be taken to prevent future incidents in which medical staff are unable to log into the E-health system, use the data, or enter information.
“During the meeting of the Ministers and Vice-Ministers, it was agreed that updates will be halted on working days and implemented on weekends after additional testing, and that in the long term a study to strengthen the governance of the E-health system will be prepared,” said the Vice-Minister of Health.
The recent disruptions may have occurred because the implemented changes were extensive, technologically complex, and involved not only modifications to the central part of the E-health system, but also changes made by other systems integrated with E-health, which are used by healthcare institutions. This case showed that it is necessary to strengthen dialogue among all stakeholders—the system owner, the Ministry of Health, the system operator, the Registers Center, and the operators managing the systems used by healthcare institutions.
The Vice-Minister of Health said that separate parts of the E-health system will also be decomposed, more staff will be hired, and additional investments will be allocated.
Users are reminded that adapting to the updated system also requires training for the staff of healthcare institutions.