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THE DIGITAL HEALTH SYSTEM IN TURKEY
At the Turkey – United Kingdom Health Business Forum held in Istanbul, Turkish Deputy Minister of Health Dr. made a presentation about the digital health infrastructure in Turkey. The session moderator and one of the officials of the National Health Authority of England (NHS), Dr. After the presentation, expressed admiration for Turkey’s digital health infrastructure and demanded that “Teach us as well”. Deputy Minister Dr. made statements to the News Agency. Turkish Deputy Minister of Health noted that there is a demand from many countries of the world to learn about Turkey’s digital health infrastructure, especially the Turkey e-Nabiz healthcare application, and the British have been spending billions of pounds for years, but they have not been able to build such an integrated digital infrastructure.
On December 2-3, 2021 in Istanbul, Turkey Organized by the Ministry of Health and the embassy of the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom’s leading medical tourism agents, insurance companies and health care institutions in the UK which aims to bring together Istanbul-Turkey Business Forum health care senior health officials and doctors have joined scientists, both from Turkey and from the UK. The Deputy Minister of Health, who made a presentation on the digital health infrastructure of Turkey at the Forum, Dr. made important statements to AA News Agency. Dr. First, noting that many countries in the world know what Turkey is doing in the field of digitalization in health, he said, “As a result of a very long-term study, after a serious period of work such as 7 years, we have become the best digitalized Ministry of Health in the world. We are one of the ministries where the culture of managing with data sits the most. And the British said (at this session), ‘Come tell us about it. That’s why he said, ’I’m a little embarrassed here as an Englishman’. Because they have been spending billions of pounds of money on these projects and similar infrastructures for many years, but they do not yet have an infrastructure that is fully integrated, where the whole structure can work together, where the citizen, doctor, health facility manager can find and decide on all kinds of their own data,” he said.
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APART FROM THE UK, DEMAND IS ALSO INTENSE FROM EU COUNTRIES AND SURROUNDING GEOGRAPHIES
Explaining that not only personal health information is kept in these systems, it is actually possible to measure whether a health institution is doing its job well or not. First, “You can measure patients’ waiting times, see the cost of surgery or procedures, which diseases that institution treats and which ones it cannot, and how many days the patient applies to another institution after that. In fact, the fact that a patient applies to another institution is a loss for that institution. The patient means that he didn’t get his expectations there. You can also show all this, all this data to your administrators. Other countries are also wondering how we have achieved incredible digitalization in terms of the distance we have traveled in such a short time in transforming our health and the money we have spent, and they are asking how they can transfer it to their own countries. There are also demands from the countries of the European Union, as well as from Western countries, for example, the UK is at their head. Be sure to come to us and tell us how you achieved this process, in case we want to know. But we also receive a lot of visits from developing countries in our heartland geography on this issue,” he said.
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THE MOST POPULAR APPLICATION IS e-PULSE
Emphasizing that e-Pulse is the most curious and in demand from digital health infrastructures, Dr. First, “The e-Pulse attracts the most attention, the Teleradiology project attracts attention. And our Decision Support System (KDS) is in demand. KDS is also not one of the internationally known systems that give and receive large amounts of money in the world. These are applications that have been completely developed in Turkey, but are much more capable than the applications known in the world. It was all done by Turkish children, Turkish engineers developed it and they started selling it to many parts of the world,” he said.
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LIBRARY OF DIGITAL HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE
noting that e-Pulse is perceived as a personal health system, but e-Pulse is actually a large library on which all this infrastructure rests, Deputy Minister Dr. First, said: “yes, citizen, physicians, health information, but it offers health care factors, that has been achieved, at which time the whole system to save you through that process with the data that you receive, you can intervene even to the time waiting in the hospital. Patient satisfaction, which doctor / institution was satisfied with, which province or institution has higher satisfaction (or lower satisfaction), which surgeries have better efficiency, which patient has lower rate of going to another institution within 10 days, patient has lower rate of changing institution, etc., all of these can be reached. For example, if a patient went to another emergency room within 24 hours of contacting an emergency room, it turns out that the emergency services of this institution are inactive. Each of these are actually tools that strengthen the hand of management. The more they see this, the more they are surprised.”
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WOMEN ARE THE LEADERS IN THE USE OF E-PULSE
Stating that women hold the leadership in the e-Pulse platform, which has reached 56 million users today, Dr. First, “When we look at the table, we see that women use e-Pulse the most at a rate of 57 percent. Of course, especially the fact that mothers are more interested in health data about their children is a factor in this. In order to promote health literacy, we, like the mother, will have the opportunity to not introduce health literacy into homes through one of the most important elements of the family and to achieve many other results on this occasion,” he said.
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10 MILLION PEOPLE MADE AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE RIGHT BRANCH IN 2 MONTHS WITH “WHAT DO I HAVE
Emphasizing that the new digital health platform “What Am I Doing”, which was launched at the end of September last year, has reached 10 million users in 2 months, Dr. The first stated that thanks to this application, appointments from the wrong branch will be prevented, especially so that the health system will be used more effectively in all aspects. Doctor, saying that 6 out of every 100 people in the world make an appointment from the wrong branch to go to the doctor,” This is the same situation in the world as in Turkey.
Turkish citizens actually don’t really know which branches will treat their disease. On average, about 2 million outpatient clinic examinations are performed per day in Turkey. That is, 120 thousand people a day apply to the wrong branch. When making an appointment from MHRS or via the e-Pulse application, ‘What’s Wrong with Me’ can be used to query a person’s complaints and provide guidance. You can write your complaints if you want to the application, by directing the questions on the application, the patient is gradually asked which branch he should go to – even the branch the patient wants to go to at first is also asked – the branch is recommended. Perhaps, in fact, it will be enough for that patient to go to a 1st-line medical institution (family medicine). He has a problem that he can solve in family medicine without any major problems in the hospital,” he said.
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THERE ARE SIMILAR ONES IN THE WORLD, BUT THERE IS NO e-PULSE SYSTEM UNDER IT
Pointing out that there are similar applications in the world, but none of them have such a large system as e-Pulse in the background, it cannot produce algorithms related to the patient’s existing diseases, Dr. “We are showing the patient 5 more possible diagnoses with similar complaints to himself in this system. There are applications that do similar things in the world, but What I have is, ‘knowing the patient’s own diseases’ (because what his complaint is related to also depends on his existing disease. Even with the same complaints, different diagnoses can be made) he can recommend different branches. Currently, 10 million people have experienced the system. From there, some of them received a diagnosis and went to the hospital according to that diagnosis. There is a better side to our practice than similar ones in Western countries, we also show the doctor the answer that artificial intelligence gives to the questions asked by the person. When the doctor also makes the actual diagnosis to the patient, that diagnosis also goes into the system. In this way, it allows artificial intelligence to learn from the physician and becomes a structure that increases the accuracy rate. Currently, the system is able to diagnose 85 percent of complaints that require a Turkish state hospital admission. That is, 85 percent of applications receive these diagnoses. Our goal is to get to know around 100. Our Turkish doctors will be really relieved when we do this. Many of our patients will not have to go to the hospital in Turkey in panic, and will not resort to emergency rooms for nothing. Or, on the contrary, urgent cases will go to the emergency room in no time; the system will recommend it, it will be able to call an ambulance.”
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Turkey's world-renowned organ transplant specialist. Dr. Demirbaş has 104 international publications and 102 national publications.
Physician's Resume:
Born on August 7, 1963 in Çorum, Prof. Dr. Alper Demirbaş has been continuing his work as the President of MedicalPark Antalya Hospital Organ Transplantation Center since 2008.
Prof. who performed the first tissue incompatible kidney transplant in Turkey, the first blood type incompatible kidney transplant, the first kidney-pancreas transplant program and the first cadaveric donor and live donor liver transplant in Antalya. Dr. As of August 2016, Alper Demirbaş has performed 4900 kidney transplants, 500 liver transplants and 95 pancreas transplants.
In addition to being the chairman of 6 national congresses, he has also been an invited speaker at 12 international and 65 national scientific congresses. Dr. Alper Demirbaş was married and the father of 1 girl and 1 boy.
Awards:
Eczacibasi Medical Award of 2002, Akdeniz University Service Award of 2005, Izder Medical Man of the Year Award of 2006, BÖHAK Medical Man of the Year Award of 2007, Sabah Mediterranean Newspaper Scientist of the Year Award of 2007, ANTIKAD Scientist of the Year Award of 2009, Social Ethics Association Award of 2010, Işık University Medical Man of the Year Award of 2015, VTV Antalya's Brand Value Award of 2015.
Certificates:
Doctor of Medicine Degree Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine Ankara, General Surgeon Ministry of Health Turkey EKFMG (0-477-343-8), University of Miami School of Medicine Member of Multiple Organ Transplant, ASTS Multiorgan Transplant Scholarship. Lecturer at Kyoto University. Lecturer at University of Essen, Research assistant at the University of Cambridge .
Professional Members:
American Society of Transplant Surgeons, American Transplantation Society Nominated, Middle East and Southern Africa Council Transplantation Society 2007, International Liver Transplantation Association, Turkish Transplantation Association, Turkish Society of Surgery, Turkish Hepatobiliary Surgery Association.
Disclaimer:
Our website contents consist of articles approved by our Web and Medical Editorial Board with the contributions of our physicians. Our contents are prepared only for informational purposes for public benefit. Be sure to consult your doctor for diagnosis and treatment.