Lithuania: Healthcare system and eHealth strategy
Healthcare system
Basic data
65,300 square km
3.36m inhabitants
51.8 inhabitants per square km
67% of the population live in urban areas
Life expectancy at birth 71.12 years
Healthcare System
Mainly public healthcare as well as private sector of primary healthcare and odontological care.Healthcare Organisation
Public healthcare service providers are subordinated to Ministry of Health or local authorities. National Patient Fund at the Ministry of Health and five Territorial Patient Funds provide services to all 10 counties of Lithuania.Healthcare Insurance System
Compulsory Health Insurance Fund is the main source of health care financing. Compulsory Health Insurance is executed by the Compulsory Health Insurance Council, State Patient Fund Territorial and five Patient Fund offices.Number of general practitioners, dentists and hospitals
In 2006: 13,510 physicians (39.9 per 10,000 pop.) and 2,249 dentists (6.6 per 10,000 pop.).
There were 158 public hospitals, of which 67 were general practice hospitals, 29 specialised, 4 rehabilitation and 58 nursing hospitals, 90 policlinics, 90 primary healthcare centres, 180 ambulatories, 35 general practitioner offices.
The number of private healthcare providers increased rapidly and amounted to over 2,200 in 2006. However, only about two thirds of these institutions provide annual statistical reports on their activities and resources. There were 14 hospitals, 15 medical rehabilitations, 170 primary healthcare institutions and 911 dentist offices among the private healthcare institutions which provided annual statistical report.
Communication between different professionals concerning the single patient
Communication is mainly paper-based. Different solutions of IT and telecommunications offered and used on every-day basis within the regional level.Main Realised Telemedicine Activities
- Electronic Patient Register
- Internet Patient Card
- E-booking
- Litmed 1
- Litmed 2
- Baltic Medweb
- Digital Ophthalmology
- eHealth for Regions
- Baltic eHealth
- eRadiology
- eUltrasound
- Picture Archiving Communication System
- IT health
- Info Sveikata
- R-bay
- Eastern Lithuanian Project
International cooperation on patient basis
Common Swedish-Lithuanian networking for 2nd opinion, distance education, information exchange, creation of common databases; common cross-border small-scale investments and pilot implementation.eHealth strategy
Main objectives
- To keep the balance in currently implemented and newly developed IT and communication solutions, national and global tendencies, as well as short- and long-term perspectives, which will allow evolutionary eHealth development.
- To promote eHealth development, ensuring effectiveness, quality and accessibility of healthcare services for patients by the use of comprehensive, reliable, secure and timely patient-oriented health information exchange and modern IT solutions.
- To create an effective eHealth system, able to provide information for comprehensive administrative and clinical decision-making.
Main actions in milestones
- Create and maintain the cornerstone of the eHealth system – national electronic health record, be based on safe and reliable information exchange and storage.
- Create and maintain eHealth solutions taking full advantage of their use in the clinical as well as administrative decision-making.
- Continue the formation of the infrastructure of the national eHealth system (NESS) covering technical resources, data transmission infrastructure and data interchange standards, and safety.
- Create and develop direct and indirect patient-oriented services (information exchange, consultation, registration, patient empowerment, etc.).
- Develop and maintain the IT and communication technology in national healthcare providers – NESS subsystem components.
- Secure reliable and safe data exchange.
- Develop and support the clinical decision-making solutions.
- Develop medical imaging management and telemedicine solutions.
- Implement modern solutions for information analysis and management, reporting and accounting.
- Disseminate eHealth potentials within different levels and promote further education of eHealth users.
Links
Actual information in English and the National eHealth strategy 2007 - 2015 in Lithuanian language: www.sam.lt/lt/main/sveikatos_apsauga/el_sveikata
European Commission report "eHealth priorities and strategies in European countries",
see chapter Lithuania on page 53.
Contact
Domantas Stundys (member of the Executive Steering Committee),E-Mail: dstundys@takas.lt