Today, during the meeting of the Government chaired by the Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev, Minister of Healthcare, Yelzhan Birtanov reported on the ongoing work on the digitization of healthcare.

As Yelzhan Birtanov noted, digitalization of public health services is implemented as a separate initiative under the project "Modernization of the Healthcare System" within the framework of the President's Address "Third Modernization of Kazakhstan: Global Competitiveness", while ensuring full synchronization with the State Program "Digital Kazakhstan".

The Roadmap for the Healthcare Digitization for 2017-2018 is developed. By the end of the year, a pilot implementation of the Unified Integration Platform is planned, within which each citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan will have his cell — the electronic health passport. Also, the activities of individual services will be automated: the Health Insurance Fund, public health and in the field of drug provision.

"A memorandum of cooperation was signed between the Ministry of Healthcare and IBM, within the framework of which a pilot introduction of artificial intelligence in healthcare — ‘Watson for oncology’ is planned. Currently, within the framework of the aforementioned memorandum, a roadmap for the pilot project is being developed," the minister said.

At the same time, today, together with UNICEF, the mobile application "Health Nurse and Care for Young Children" is being developed. The launch of the mobile application is scheduled for December 2017.

In 2018, the system of paperless healthcare will be launched in pilot mode in four regions: Karaganda, Kostanay, Akmola and West Kazakhstan, as well as in a number of organizations at the national level. From January 1, 2019, medical organizations will completely switch to a paperless format for the management of medical records, including: electronic outpatient cards, electronic medical records and electronic prescriptions.

According to the Minister, through the digitization of healthcare, it is planned to increase the productivity of health workers and increase the population's satisfaction with medical services.

In addition, at the meeting, a speech on this issue was made by General Electric Chief Digital Officer, William Ruh.