Telecommunications Techniques in the Healthcare Development: Foreign Experience and Russian Realities

The article analyses the of telecommunications techniques in the transformation of the Russian economy, focus on supporting this direction in the Russia’s development. Telecommunications techniques create new opportunities for the health sector. There is a positive experience of some developed countries in the world actively implementing telecommunication techniques in health care practice for the social effect, the provision of quality medical services to people in the remote country’s regions, the transfer of the medical experience to the staff and also the increase of the medical care systems economic efficiency. In Russia also there are initiatives for the health system digitalization and the modern telecommunications techniques use. However, there are some difficulties and obstacles in the implementation, confirmed by expert opinions. It is important for the study of the role of telecommunications, information and communication techniques in the health care development at the present stage, the increase of medical care quality and the industry efficiency to evaluate the professional community’s perception of the healthcare digitalization; the foreign experience of the telecommunications techniques use in the health care development according to their economic efficiency; current prospects for the modern telecommunications techniques introduction taking into account the foreign experience. The foreign experience in patients’ remote diagnostics and medical professionals training, as well as regular evaluation of the processes economic efficiency, can and should be actively implemented in Russia’s practice. Such trends have been fully manifested only in Moscow, Moscow region, Saint-Petersburg, and Tatarstan. Other territories are significantly behind in providing telecommunications services to the healthcare sector. In Russia, the medical professional community realizes the importance of the health care digitalization, authorities supported and fixed the digitalization use at the institutional level, and the obstacles must be overcome on the basis of the expert community opinion and the international experience.