Romania to invest 400 million euros in digitalization projects in health system (analysis)

Romania plans to invest 400 million euros in projects to digitize the health system, through funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), say representatives of Horvath, an international consulting company in management.

"This amount represents less than half of the budget allocated by Poland, another beneficiary of PNRR, which has planned investments of one billion euros in the digitalization of the health system. Romania has decided that, out of the total of 29.2 billion euros, received from the European Union through PNRR, 2.45 should be directed to health. This budget is one of the largest in Central and Eastern Europe, intended for the health sector, the press release states.

The study conducted by Horvath, in the first part of this year, aims at the use of funds from PNRR in the health system of six European countries: Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Croatia.

According to the cited source, Romania has declared its intention that a significant part of the 2.45 billion euros allocated to health, namely 1.9 billion euros, should go towards the renewal of infrastructure, through projects such as the modernisation of existing hospitals and building of new ones, as well as the purchase of modern medical equipment, agerpres reports.

As regards the digitalization of the medical system, Romania is preparing projects related to the consolidation of telemedicine, the improvement of the digital infrastructure of the public health units, the mobile patient monitoring systems and the technical assistance for the development and integration of digital health solutions. By comparison, Poland is investing more than double our country's budget in advanced projects such as Artificial Intelligence for medical analysis and diagnosis.

Moreover, health expenditures, adjusted to the purchasing power of the population, placed Romania on the last place, among the six states analysed in the Horvath research, despite a 45 percent increase, between 2015 and 2018. Thus, our country spent 1,210 euro per capita in 2018, while the Czech Republic, 2,280 euro in the same year. Slovakia, Hungary and Poland each reported more than 1,510 euro per capita, and the EU average was 3,080 euro per capita.

Romania is the only state, out of the six included in the Horvath analysis, which intends to resort to the total grants and loans accessible through PNRR, reaching the amount of 29.2 billion euro. The Czech Republic will get 7.1 billion euro through PNRR, Hungary should take 7.2 billion euro, and Slovakia, 6.6 billion euro, and none of these countries will use loans.

Croatia, which will receive 6.5 billion euro, and Poland, which will access 36 billion euro, have defined their plans with two-thirds grants and one-third loans. The national plans for Croatia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have already been approved by the European Commission. Poland and Romania are awaiting approval, and the evaluation for Hungary is currently suspended.

Horvath is one of the most important international, independent, management consulting companies, present on the Romanian market, since 2005.