On April 24, the expanded meeting of the Russian Health Ministry summed up the results of 2018 and plans for the development of Russian health care for the forthcoming period. Evgeny Shlyakhto, Director General of Almazov Centre, attended the event.
Veronika Skvortsova, Minister of Health, emphasized that the re-establishment of the network of National Medical Research Centers at the present level has played an important role in the development of national healthcare.
The report summarizing the results of 2018 and the tasks for 2019 outlined that the principal healthcare facilities in the Russian regions were linked to the leading national medical research centres within the Federal Telemedicine System. More than 780 organizations were connected and centres provided over 3.5 thousand telemedicine consultations in 2018.
It should be noted that the telemedicine centre at Almazov Centre provides telemedicine consultations to clinics in 85 Russian regions in 46 fields, including cardiology, cardiovascular surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, perinatology, in utero diagnosis of birth defects, rheumatology, hematology and more. The register of consulting doctors includes more than 150 researchers and clinicians who are the leading experts and heads of departments at medical institutes and clinical units.
In 2018, Almazov Centre specialists provided more than 6,000 consultations. Cardiology accounted for more than 500 consultations and cardiovascular surgery for nearly 1000. It should be noted that the main purpose of such consultations is to support the choice of tactics for treating difficult regional cases, provide a second opinion, follow up regional patients with orphan diseases or after high-tech procedures such as heart transplantation. If necessary, regional patients are sent to Almazov Centre for treatment.
Another important task of the telemedicine center is to deliver educational programs. Weekly clinical case discussions, lectures, workshops, video broadcasts from ORs are an essential part of its day-to-day work.