The Covid-19 outbreak has verified the assumptions about the healthcare system. We defined services and projects that are an important opportunity to improve efficiency and savings in the system. However, optimal financing is necessary for success, believes prof. Adam Witkowski, president of the Polish Society of Cardiology.

According to prof. Adam Witkowski, head of the Department of Cardiology and Intervention Angiology of the National Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw, president of the Polish Society of Cardiology, the Covid-19 epidemic has shown that many healthcare services can be successfully implemented remotely.

"With the help of telephone medical advices, we can primarily carry out medical consultations and writing prescriptions. I am convinced that these forms of telemedicine will stay with us permanently. Teleconsultations have proved to be an important form of optimizing the effectiveness of healthcare services in this context," prof. Adam Witkowski said.

Experts of the Polish Society of Cardiology admit that it is very successful to remotely conduct rehabilitation classes for patients after a heart attack or with heart failure. Similarly, thanks to telemonitoring of implantable devices, you can successfully monitor the condition of patients at a distance.

According to the experts of the Polish Society of Cardiology, the epidemic has shown how important and stable the issue of financing health care is.

“Although we have known this for years, in the face of epidemic challenges we have particularly clearly seen the scale of the under-financing of the healthcare sector. For years, subsequent governments have promised to improve and increase investment in this area, but for now there can be no visible improvement,” Witkowski stressed.

The fact that there is no more money in the system is demonstrated by the example of settling procedures in the current reality of an epidemic. The treatment of patients, undertaken because of Covid-19 infection, causes a loss as part of the hospital lump sum.

(WBJ)