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.