In order to build an efficient e-health system, we need to start managing medical data

Medical breakthroughs have usually been associated with revolutionary new technologies. In the near future, the biggest changes may arise from the use of artificial intelligence. For this to happen, we need a new approach to managing medical data, terabytes of which are generated daily by medical entities.

Recent years have been marked by a major acceleration in building Poland’s e-health system. Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, regulations explicitly allowed for the use of telemedicine, medical facilities were required to keep electronic medical records and issue e-prescriptions. Today, as part of a remote connection with a doctor, a patient can potentially receive the entire set of documentation they need in digital form, and all information about their health status should be recorded electronically.

Although we can boast successes in the field of e-health, there are still many challenges and work ahead. – Just look at the KPO. By 2026, we plan to launch new e-services, including digital tools for analyzing a patient’s health, decision support tools for doctors based on AI algorithms, or a central medical data repository integrated with other key health systems. A systemic approach to data management is therefore necessary, notes Michal Czarnuch, Partner and head of the Life Science practice at DZP.

Meanwhile, accessibility to medical data and ensuring its quality requires a number of improvements. Despite legal obligations, a sizable number of healthcare entities still do not conduct ongoing reporting of medical data to the central system. Although we do collect data, it is scattered, lacking a common structure, and often deficient.

– One of the key barriers is the current regulations, some of which were typically designed for paper records. The associated interpretive uncertainties may discourage the “sharing” of medical data. Without legal changes and an increase in the use of anonymized data for research and development purposes, it will be difficult for us to build a modern, effective e-health system – assesses Paweł Kaźmierczyk, PhD, Healthcare Team leader in DZP’s Life Science practice.

Measures aiming to realize the potential of health data are already underway at the EU level. A key initiative in this regard is the regulation establishing the European Health Data Space, a system comprising regulations, common standards and practices, infrastructures and governance frameworks that aim to empower patients through better digital access to their data and provide a consistent, reliable and efficient structure for the use of data for research, innovation, policy-making and regulatory action.