The Polish e-health platform is the fifth most advanced system in the EU, according to a report by the Union. Although many digital health services have already been implemented, there are still areas that require further effort and investment. These include the implementation of central e-registration, the use of medical data, and ensuring their interoperability. Now, with additional billions of złoty allocated for e-health from the National Recovery Plan, investments can be accelerated. However, the time to utilize these funds is short, requiring careful preparation.
“In the realm of e-health, we’ve planned investments amounting to about 4 billion złoty. We have several specific goals and actions in mind, including spending on the development of new tools and AI-based diagnostic tools, digitizing documents, and ensuring cyber security. We allocate substantial resources for all of this”, stated Katarzyna Kacperczyk, State Secretary at the Ministry of Health, in an interview with Newseria Innowacje.
Funds for the mentioned investments are to come from the National Recovery Plan, whose total health protection allocation is nearly 20 billion złoty. The release of these funds coincides with the implementation of the European Health Union’s objectives, aimed at responding to potential future pandemics and improving the resilience of European healthcare systems.
Support instruments will be a focus of increased interest from entities in the coming years, including large hospitals, medical groups, and smaller units. Experts believe that preparing to apply for this support will be crucial.
Entities should prepare an inventory, consider what they need and what is essential for treatment and management processes to be more efficient, and scout for potential service providers. This is critical as the time for implementation is very limited. The investment deadline is June 2026, explained Michał Czarnuch, Head of Life Science Practice at Rymarz Zdort Maruta law firm. The Ministry of Health should play a significant educational role. The sooner we publish the competitions, the better. We should also initiate a broad educational campaign.
Katarzyna Kacperczyk acknowledges that digital solutions in the Polish healthcare system are at a good level. We often meet with other member states, discuss, and share our experiences. We also face challenges in introducing unified systems for all hospitals to ensure common digital data space. We have to emphasize this. We are talking about new technologies and AI. They will not replace doctors but they can be used as a diagnostic process support.
Poland ranks fifth out of 27 surveyed countries, with a 90% e-health indicator, according to the European Commission’s “Digital Decade 2024: E-health Indicator Survey”. The average for all countries is 79%, with only Belgium reaching 100%. The report analyzes the progress of individual countries in implementing e-health solutions in four areas: digital health data access services, health data available to patients, access methods, and used technologies (identity authentication, mobile applications), and coverage.
The development of digital health solutions has accelerated in recent years. While some attribute it to the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation matured to the point where a significant part of the sector was prepared for it. This is apparent from the solutions in place, such as the Internet Patient Account, IKP application, e-referral, e-prescription, which place us ahead of many European countries. Most citizens have access to the data on these accounts. Nevertheless, there is still plenty to be done, for instance in terms of e-registration or access to laboratory and imaging diagnostics. We can be glad that we are moving in the right direction, but there are still areas where we can make another big leap forward, commented Michał Kępowicz, Board Member of Philips Polska, Board Member of the Chamber of Commerce for Medical Products POLMED.
Over 18 million users are now using the Internet Patient Account. The call for applications for the central e-registration pilot started at the end of August, and the pilot itself is scheduled to last until the end of June next year. So far, the programme is limited to preventive examinations – mammograms and cytologies, as well as visits to cardiology clinics.
In June, the Ministry of Health announced plans to introduce at least two AI services: one to analyze patient health and another to support diagnostic and clinical decisions. Polish healthcare leaders are keen to use AI technologies. According to Philips’ Future Health Index 2024 report, they are implementing these technologies more frequently than their global counterparts in many areas, for example in patient monitoring in hospitals (58% versus 43% worldwide average) and medication management (57% versus 37% worldwide average). For AI algorithms to work effectively, a sufficient amount of high-quality data is necessary.
Michał Kępowicz highlights that a vitally important issue is interoperability, which ensures that all data within the system move at the largest possible scale, in a targeted and secure manner. There’s increasing interest in the automation of processes in hospitals that can be robotized, particularly administrative ones. We are also resorting more and more to solutions like Data Lake and Data Warehouse – massive data resources generated in healthcare by digital medical devices. By 2025, about 2 zettabytes of medical data will be available globally – a true ocean of unprocessed information that, once structured and analyzed, can provide answers to crucial clinical and diagnostic questions about whole groups of patients as well as single individuals.
All health leaders surveyed by Philips stated that their organizations face challenges related to data integration. As a result, employees lose valuable time accessing or integrating data. Improving interoperability between different platforms and medical establishments and increasing access for patients to their own medical data would be beneficial, according to the respondents.
