Concept of New Healthcare System Promulgated

On May, 27, 2014, the Ministry of Ukraine promulgated for public hearing the Draft Ordinance of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine 'On Approval of the Concept of New Healthcare System’ (the ‘Concept’- hereinafter).

Performance of the provisions of the Concept is aimed at resolving key problems in the healthcare system of Ukraine, specifically, as follows:

• critically low average life expectancy against that in other European countries and high disability of the general public;
• ineffective structure of administration of the healthcare system, health governance system (burocratization, for instance, as in the part of regulatory functions, as well as in respect of direct administration of healthcare institutions and medical aid, missing counterbalance in powers of civil society institutions);
• underdeveloped modern mechanisms of financing, dispersion and irrational usage of the resources available;
• deficit of personnel due to downplaying the social prestige of the medical profession, missing motivation for quality improvement and increase in the effectiveness of medical aid.

According to the Concept, further modernization of first medical aid, only and exclusively, without any changes in provision the general public with the services of secondary and tertiary medical aid, in the system of public healthcare will lead to the consequent deepening of the gap in the needs of the general public in the services specified and the scope of the services provided. Due to the above, it is necessary to implement the fundamentals of the European policy 'Health 2020' through a comprehensive approach, specifically, as follows:

1. Development and implementation of general mandatory social healthcare insurance.
2. Maintenance of contractual relations between the state and healthcare institutions.
3. Stimulating development of voluntary medical insurance.
4. Modernization of administration system by creating the system of counterweights in the form of professional self-governance (doctors, junior specialists with medical educational background, pharmaceutical chemists) and self-governing organizations of medical aid providers for articulate regulation of rights, obligations and responsibilities of the parties as well as further development of the system for healthcare monitoring and subreporting.
5. Update of staffing for the purpose of raising quality of pre-diploma and post-diploma training of personnel.
6. Subsequent development of primary medical aid based on the principles of family medicine, optimization of the network of secondary medical aid institutions with the view to the needs of the general public in the services of secondary and tertiary medical aid, differentiation between the institutions of secondary medical aid by intensiveness of medical treatment and types of secondary medical aid, precise definition of tertiary healthcare institutions.
7. Implementation of the quality management system for medical aid.
8. Forming the system of electronic healthcare and uniting the information resources of the field into a uniform information field.
9. Ensuring effective pharmaceutical policy:
• simplification and rationalization of permit system, balancing the system of control;
• stimulation and import substitution;
• implementation of state regulation of prices on medicinal products and application of reference prices;
• expanding application of the mechanism for reimbursement for the medicinal products;
• modernization of drugstore network into the system that provides medical and pharmaceutical services.
10. Provision of effective information and communication support to building a new healthcare system.
11. Enhancement of leadership and collective governance in the interests of health, increase of openness, transparency and public participation of local self-governance bodies by provision of healthcare services.