”The Ministry of Health of Canton Sarajevo (CS) sent a notice to all health institutions in CS about the way to facilitate the process of examination by medical specialists, ” said Minister Haris Vranic.
As he further states, recently they have noticed an increase in the dissatisfaction of patients who are burdened with administrative procedures when issuing referrals for specialist examinations.
Unnecessary waste of time for patients
”The health condition of the patient, who is referred to a specialist by his family medicine doctor, often requires additional examinations by other specialists from different medical fields.
According to the current practice, there was an unnecessary loss of time for patients, prolongation of diagnostic time and delay in the start of their treatment.
Because of the above, the Ministry of Health contacted all health institutions and the Health Insurance Institute of the CS, and proposed that the medical specialist doctor who first examines the patient and based on his findings recommends an examination with another specialist, issue an electronic referral for that recommended examination, without the need to the patient returns to his family practice doctor.
Time for diagnosis and initiation of treatment significantly shortened
By implementing this new approach, every patient visit to a specialist will be recorded in the health information system, along with the findings. The doctor of family medicine will have an insight into the complete movement of the patient, and the time of diagnosis and the start of treatment will be significantly shortened.
The Ministry recognizes the importance of facilitating access to quality health care for all patients. In this way, we want to improve the patient experience, reduce administrative obstacles and ensure a faster path to the necessary specialist examinations.
We invite all healthcare institutions to implement the necessary changes in accordance with the new guidelines,” Vranic said on Facebook.