The information space will ensure effective interaction between all participants in the blood-and blood products-related healthcare: donors, recipients, medical institutions and authorities

Kyiv, 18 April 2022 - The Ministry of Health of Ukraine, with the support of UNDP, has completed the preparation of technical requirements for the creation of an information space for participants in blood- and blood-products-related healthcare.

The information space is a set of technologies that enable information exchanges between all participants in the system: donors, recipients, blood centres, executive and supervisory national and local authorities, as well as patients organisations and other civil society entities. In particular, a unified and centralised national system is created to record donors, recipients, donations, stocks, requirements for blood and/or its components, and blood transfusions in Ukraine.

The functioning of such a space will help to address the many challenges the blood- and blood-related healthcare faces due to lack of financial, logistical, and human resources.

Due to flaws with the previous systemic, this very complex medical sphere faced a lack of volunteer donors and blood components, an absence of control over the technological processes of the procurement, testing, processing, storage, and distribution of donor blood and blood components, the lack of centralized management of blood components, and insufficient supervision over the proper use of blood components for patients, the provision of transfusion services, and absence of hemostasis.

Together, this caused serious obstacles to introducing high quality blood-related medical care in Ukraine. The new information space will help to overcome the disorder of the system by uniting donors, recipients, donations, transfusions, and blood components in Ukraine into a single accounting system.

The features of the space will be of use to both donors, potential and available, and the staff of medical institutions.

By means of "personal accounts" donors will receive information about the existing rewards system for donors and current updates on the need for blood or its components. Recipients will have full access to transfusions, while the monitoring system will guarantee the security of all processes and ensure the safety of donors.

At the same time, the system will automate the work of blood centres. The functioning of the unified information space will resolve issues not only in individual medical institutions, but also at the regional and national levels.

The automation of certain processes will also reduce work burdens on hospital staff and the administration, thus allowing them to concentrate on other important activities, but more importantly it will seriously reduce the likelihood of human errors.

The information space is being created under the coordination of the Ministry of Health within the framework of the Strategy for the Development of blood-related medical care in Ukraine. Approved by the government in 2019, it aims to ensure equal and timely access of patients to high-quality and safe donor blood components in sufficient quantities. The implementation of the planned modernization of the blood- and blood-related healthcare is estimated at approximately UAH 6.5 billion and is carried out at the expense of the state, regional budgets, funds from international partners and through public-private partnership mechanisms.