KEY CONCLUSIONS

Healthcare system must meet the ambitious goals of national development

“We have set very ambitious national development goals that have serious integrated indicators, especially in terms of life expectancy, and it would be impossible to achieve them without actual change,” Dmitry Peskov, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Digital and Technological Development.

“Russia must join the club of countries with life expectancy of 80+. In order to fulfill this comprehensive task, we need to change the paradigm that <...> faces all the strategic services that govern our country,” Elena Boyko, Deputy Minister of Healthcare of the Russian Federation.

Improving quality and longevity of life is the basis of economic growth

“For us, as a business, it is important that people do not simply live to a certain age, but that they live actively and use our products,” Mark Zavadsky, Vice President, Head of the SberX Ecosystem Development Directorate, Sberbank.

The culture of people’s attitude towards their own health needs to be changed

“In the long term, the working scenario is the one that directly involves people’s responsibility for their own lives and their own health,” Kirill Kaem, Senior Vice President for Innovation, Skolkovo Foundation.

“Health is not at all the same thing as treatment,” Vladimir Lishchuk, Vice President, Academy of Medical and Technical Sciences.

“Our mission is to change the culture of people’s attitude towards their health. <...> 17% of people in Russia never go to see a doctor. 54% of the Russians address medical professionals only when it is an absolute necessity,” Eric Brovko, Founder and Investor, My Health platform; Deputy Chairman, Commission on Innovations and Informatization in Healthcare, Public Council of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation.

High quality and accessibility of healthcare is a necessity 

“There are three goals for healthcare: to increase accessibility, improve quality and try to reduce the costs of medical care,” Simon Matskeplishvili, Deputy Scientific Director, Lomonosov Moscow State University Clinic; Member of the Board, Russian Society of Cardiology; Cardiologist; Member, Russian Academy of Sciences.

PROBLEMS

Lack of a unified approach to digitalization of healthcare

“When we talk about digitalization of healthcare, as a rule, people mean completely different things,” Dmitry Peskov, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Digital and Technological Development.

“The IT industry is very young, and we still barely have the services that form unified standards, unified codes, guidelines and regulatory information,” Elena Boyko, Deputy Minister of Health of the Russian Federation.

Insufficient level of personnel training

“The problem is that our doctors know neither how to diagnose their patients nor how to prescribe treatment correctly,” Simon Matskeplishvili, Deputy Scientific Director, Lomonosov Moscow State University Clinic; Member of the Board, Russian Society of Cardiology; Cardiologist; Member, Russian Academy of Sciences.

“Now the entire education system in Russia is focused on paying universities for lengthy programmes. It is simply unprofitable to create short-term programmes,” Sergey Morozov, Chief Freelance Diagnostic Specialist, Moscow Healthcare Department; Chief Executive Officer, Scientific and Practical Clinical Centre for Diagnostics and Telemedicine Technologies of Moscow Healthcare Department; Doctor of Medicine, Professor.

Insufficient rate of introducing new technologies

“The biggest challenge in the system of digital healthcare is the rate of changing and introducing modern technologies that have been clinically tested,” Oleg Pak, Deputy Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation.

“One of the major problems we face is that the digital market itself is rather small. Telemedicine products are available to millions of users as part of insurance products, but they are utilized by the very few. Nothing is going to change unless we convince people that this is very important, necessary and valuable,” Mark Zavadsky, Vice President, Head of the SberX Ecosystem Development Directorate, Sberbank.

“A large number of medical professionals in Russia say that they see real benefits from IT in their hospitals. But at the same time, 85% of employees are not quite satisfied with the existing level of digitalization,” Nikolay Sivak, Commercial Director, Philips “Healthcare” Russia and CIS.

Mass health screenings for the people may dramatically increase the burden on healthcare

“Health screening is a wonderful approach, but many countries are not prepared to screenings revealing large numbers of patients who would later need to be treated,” Simon Matskeplishvili, Deputy Scientific Director, Lomonosov Moscow State University Clinic; Member of the Board, Russian Society of Cardiology; Cardiologist; Member, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Aging population and developing medical technology require an increase in healthcare spending

“The problem is the same all over the world: life expectancy increases, and the proportion of chronic diseases grows with it. New diagnostic and treatment technologies emerge, which also leads to increased costs,” Danil Baryshnikov, Chairman, Committee for Investment in Social Infrastructure, Agency for Social Investment.

SOLUTIONS

Using digital technology in healthcare

“We need to change the paradigm from saving lives to preserving health, and digital technologies are obviously the engine that is going to tackle this challenge,” Elena Boyko, Deputy Minister of Healthcare of the Russian Federation.

“We bet on three things: telemedicine, Internet of Things and patient registries,” Irina Panarina, General Manager, AstraZeneca Russia and Eurasia.

“Over the next 6 years, the only task that we can actually fulfill – and it is the crucial one – is creating real electronic medical records that would allow any authorized doctor to press a button and understand what was happening to their patient. Everything else is built around the medical records,” Arkady Stolpner, Chairman of the Board, Sergey Berezin Medical Institute.

“Our entire business, medical and otherwise, is based on statistics and data. <...> The target model <...> is the development of artificial intelligence, because it would be able to analyze many more parameters and provide more accurate recommendations. We must come to the point where diagnoses and recommendations are based on data, rather than on subjective doctors’ opinions,” Oleg Ovsyanitsky, General Director, VSK Insurance.

Improving the system of health screenings

“The first challenge is to increase the accessibility of medical care. <...> The second one is the system of health screenings for the people. In combination with the technological solutions that we have, the level of exams will be significantly improved, risk groups will be properly distributed, and medical care will be provided correctly and more precisely,” Kirill Kaem, Senior Vice President for Innovation, Skolkovo Foundation.

Developing online medical education

“3,000 specialists were trained online last year, the course was 18 hours. The costs of training 6,000 specialists over the course of 5 years of continuous education would be around 100 million, while the online education system would only require 12 million. Once all the modules are recorded, the specialists are trained, it is cost-effective,” Sergey Morozov, Chief Freelance Diagnostic Specialist, Moscow Healthcare Department; Chief Executive Officer, Scientific and Practical Clinical Centre for Diagnostics and Telemedicine Technologies of Moscow Healthcare Department; Doctor of Medicine, Professor.

Betting on disease prevention 

“We can use some basic knowledge for preventive care. <...> It is much easier to implement prevention than to treat sick people,” Claudio Franceschi, Director, Research Laboratory of System Medicine for Healthy Ageing, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod; Professor Emeritus of Immunology, University of Bologna.