The implementation in Romania of the "smart hospital" concept will be possible as of next year, when the financing program for ensuring data interoperability and the patient diagnostic traceability will start, with undeniable benefits for the medical act, Minister of Research, Innovation and Digital Transformation Bogdan Ivan declared on Tuesday at the HealthTech Forum, an event dedicated to medical technologies and the digitization of medical services, organized at the Bucharest Palace of Parliament.

According to the minister, 207 Romanian hospitals will make the digital transition, getting connected to each other in a network, which will result in "less time spent, lower costs and much higher efficiency".

"Two weeks ago, following our co-work with Health Minister Alexandru Rafila, we managed to pass through the government a piece of legislation creating this model of 'smart hospital', which means the digitization Romania's medical system, capable of being replicated from the level of university hospitals to county or city hospitals, so that the digital transformation we have been talking about for years now is truly implemented. (...) The financing program will start as of next year, precisely in order to ensure a common language, data interoperability and the traceability of patient diagnoses in Romanian hospitals," Ivan said.

With 207 hospitals digitized through this program, they will be interconnected and the ambulance crew will enter the patient's diagnosis on a tablet, and will no longer have to wait for a hospital receptionist to fill out a medical record with pen and paper, and then wait some more for someone else to come from a ward to take over the patient, the minister said. "Health care digitization means less time spent, lower costs and much higher efficiency," Ivan pointed out.

He mentioned that Romania has "all what it takes" to occupy a leading position in the next 5-7 years in the segment of new technologies: "top quality human resources, very strong universities, also 220,000 IT&C and research experts, who need Romania to develop, who need a very good perspective here, at home."

"We are at the point where the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Transformation has projects worth EUR 400 million, perhaps the most advanced of them is the ROGEN genomics research development program coordinated by the 'Carol Davila' University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, worth EUR 83 million, and which will be signed during this month," concluded the minister.

Health Tech Forum, the event of worldwide specialists and innovators for smart hospitals organized at the Palace of Parliament highlights how technology can benefit medicine, while at the same time facilitating medical activity and patient well-being. AGERPRES (RO - Sorinel Penes, editor: Florin Marin; EN - editor: Simona Klodnischi)