Today, during a press conference in the Government, Vice Minister of Healthcare Alexei Tsoy, acting director of the Electronic Healthcare Development Department of the MH RK, Beibut Essenbayev, and the general director of the Republican Center for Electronic Healthcare of Kazakhstan, Olzhas Abishev, spoke about the transition from paper to electronic workflow.

According to A. Tsoy, for today in Kazakhstan, in the field of healthcare, there is a consistent process of transition to electronic document circulation. Physicians and nurses have been driving all patient data into information systems since 2008. So, today in the information systems of the Ministry of Healthcare of Kazakhstan there are more than 10 terabytes of information about patients.

"As for the patients themselves, they are also increasingly choosing digital methods in medicine. For example, in the regions, about 30% of residents are registered electronically, 40% – phone calls, 30% – still come to polyclinics and are recorded through the registry. But even this dynamic considerably relieves the registries," the Vice Minister said.

Until the end of 2017, it is planned to automate about half of the medical institutions in Kazakhstan. From the next year, in the pilot four regions of Kazakhstan, a phased transition to paperless workflow will be carried out.

"That is, existing paper forms, reporting journals, forms, references will be canceled. In general, a large pile of documents, which is now used to record, monitor the activities of the organizations, will be transferred to the electronic format. This will give an economic effect, relieve the medical personnel, create a database of information, which in the future we will be able to process with the help of artificial intelligence and analysts," Alexei Tsoy said.

As A. Tsoy noted, by the end of 2018, the Ministry of Healthcare of Kazakhstan plans to introduce the automation of processes in medical organizations in all regions of Kazakhstan to the level of feldsher-midwife points.

The speaker also talked about the benefits for citizens of the electronic health passport, which they intend to introduce in Kazakhstan next year. It will collect information on health, diagnosis, blood groups, allergic reactions, transferred operations, recommendations. Each patient will have his own login, password, personal cabinet. Patients will be able to communicate with their attending physicians, receive notifications of vaccinations and forthcoming preventive examinations.

"The introduction of a health passport will allow each patient to have access to information about their health regardless of location. This is very important in emergency situations, as well as abroad," the Vice Minister summed up.