Armenian Prime Minister: reforms in the health system are moving in the right direction

ArmInfo. In Armenia, the system of medical insurance will be gradually introduced. On April 21, Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan was informed about this during his visit to the Ministry of Health, where a meeting with the leadership of the ministry took place. According to the press service of the government, Karen Karapetyan was presented the upcoming steps and mechanisms for introducing the system of medical insurance. It is planned, in particular, at the first stage to introduce a new system for 100 thousand civil servants, for whom a comprehensive package has been developed.  Public servants will have the opportunity to determine the medical institutions themselves, there will be no records for appointments to doctors. A package for 612 thousand socially disadvantaged groups of people and persons with disabilities will be submitted to the government in July this year.

The Minister of Health Levon Altunyan reported that it is planned to submit a package of proposals on reforming the state procurement system to the government in July 2017, according to preliminary estimates, should be made in October 2017. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister instructed to accelerate this process. "As a structure that realizes the philosophy and policy in the healthcare sphere, you must form approaches and monitor decisions", the prime minister said. In response, Levon Altunyan noted that the Ministry sees the solution to the problem in the introduction of new standards. "I expect that you will quickly orient yourself in the matter of what we really need, try to transfer some clinics to trust management, and one or two - not to Armenian companies, involve international operators, change culture," Karen Karapetyan said.

The Prime Minister was also informed about the reform of the structure of the health care system and the results of its optimization. It was noted that the reform is aimed at establishing the optimal number of medical centers, doctors and medical beds. The introduction of the system of electronic centralized procurement of E-health medicines allowed to reduce prices for pharmaceutical products. At the first stage - in medical institutions that function within the state order, and at the second stage - in all other licensed institutions. Programs for 100 thousand civil servants and 612 thousand socially unsecured strata of the population will work within the framework of this particular program.

Summarizing the results of the meeting, the Prime Minister of Armenia noted that the reforms in the system of the Ministry of Health are moving in the right direction, calling for speeding up the pace of work.