Will digital transformation increase healthcare efficiency? Electronic health data systems, artificial intelligence

In the middle of the third decade of the 21st century, it is difficult to put a question mark at all on the thesis of whether the digitization of health care will increase the efficiency of the system, because it is obvious that it will. One can discuss security issues, care about data anonymization, while there is no doubt that data, its processing and analysis are and increasingly will be the foundation of systemic and therapeutic decision-making.

Poland, as Geraldine Schenk, Country Director of Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, emphasized, is one of the most advanced countries in terms of data collection and processing, but the challenge certainly remains in terms of its use. The impetus to change the situation will undoubtedly come from the European Health Data Space (EHDS), which on the one hand is expected to enable patients to access their digital health data in all EU countries, and on the other hand will bring concrete benefits on a macro scale. - Data sharing will speed up work on new therapies. At the moment they take, on average, 10-15 years," Geraldine Schenk stressed. This, in turn, could be an important factor in strengthening the EU's competitiveness in the clinical trials market.

Data, are currently collected on a huge scale in various systems - in the National Health Fund, the e-Health Center, but also in the Central Statistical Office, NIZP-PZH, or GIS. The Social Insurance Institution also has its rich resource of data, and as Dr. Piotr Winciunas, Chief Medical Officer of the Social Insurance Institution, emphasized, they can already be used for analysis and evaluation of specific decisions regarding, for example, financing of modern technologies, because, for example, the introduction of glycemic monitoring systems has sharply reduced the cost of sick leave due to diabetes. Also, he said, for example, analyzing the data on people with MS, it is clear as day that the inclusion of innovative therapies entails a return to professional activity, patients do not need to use benefits. Those who do not receive such treatment continue to receive Social Security benefits.

How can data, collected in different systems, be used? A point of reference can be the interactive report on macular degeneration (AMD), created by the National Health Fund in cooperation with CeZ. This report is open access (to public institutions and private entities), allowing real-time monitoring of patient treatment. Data is presented both nationwide and regionally, and the report includes indicators such as average waiting time, number of visits and treatment activity.

As Prof. Ewa Lech-Marańda, national consultant in hematology and director of the Institute of Hematology and Transfusiology in Warsaw, pointed out, this solution can be considered exemplary, and access to patient treatment data - for example, in drug programs "could be better." As an example, she cited the plasmocytic myeloma treatment program, which, she stressed, covers almost all patients diagnosed with the disease. - Few people are treated outside the program, which includes multiple lines of treatment. The data being collected is a goldmine of knowledge, both from a clinical and systemic standpoint, and it would be optimal if at least consultants had access to it, she argued. If a report - created similar to the one on AMD patients - was created, accumulating data from the National Health Service, SMPT and those obtained from P1, primarily information cards, on the basis of which the patient's path can be delineated - it would be a model tool, allowing better, more effective, management of the disease - also for newly diagnosed patients.

Also, Prof. Dominik Dytfeld of the Department of Hematology and Proliferative Diseases of the Blood System in Poznan emphasized the model nature of treatment of plasmocytic myeloma, which is a chronic disease with multiple lines of treatment available to patients and doctors, between which patients are "switched." - Analysis of complete data would be of great importance for assessing, for example, the cost-effectiveness of treatment, he pointed out.

Filip Urbanski, director of the Department of Analysis, Quality Monitoring and Optimization of Benefits at the National Health Fund, assured that the National Health Fund, based on the provisions of the Law on Health Services, provides processed data to all consultants who request it. He admitted that for the time being there is no such solution in hematooncology as there is in ophthalmology (AMD). The first step in this direction is the publication of aggregated data for CAR-T therapy, which makes it possible to verify that it produces the results claimed when seeking reimbursement.

- To us, it is about universal access to data, without the need for applications. Such a model would certainly also have a positive impact on data reporting itself, she pointed out. The data could serve both doctors and patients even better, facilitating therapeutic decision-making, if AI algorithms were harnessed to pre-analyze and filter it. However, before this can be possible, experts said, access must first be opened up.