In the emergency press conference he will hold today, Friday (18/9), regarding the presentation of an AI system for the inspection of private medical practices, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis referred to it while speaking on the program “Connections” of ERTnews.
“We will present the tool we built in no time so that we can give citizens the ability to check for themselves the operating license of a private medical practice before visiting it”, Mr. Georgiadis said initially.
“We believe that the use of information by patients themselves is a much more effective means of control than any mechanism, since whatever mechanism you build, being able to inspect 245,000 medical practices is completely impossible. It is not technically feasible”, he added.
Mr. Georgiadis explained that with this specific system the citizen will be able to see from their mobile phone, before deciding to undergo a medical procedure, whether the medical practice they are in can perform that specific medical procedure or not and, of course, will also be able to make the relevant complaint if they see something strange.
He also mentioned that the system’s AI agents search the entire internet to identify misleading advertisements, so that complaints can be made by the Ministry of Health.
“The AI agents will be searching the entire internet continuously 24 hours a day to find advertisements that cannot be substantiated under the legislation, they will flag them to us at the Ministry of Health and we will make the complaints both to the Medical Associations and to the EAD”, he explained.
What the citizen will see
More specifically, answering a relevant question and referring to the death of the well-known singer Giorgos Mazonakis, he stated that the citizen can type in the doctor’s name and address and the system will now show them the doctor’s license.
“The license next to it will state the medical procedures [that] they may perform in this practice with this license. If it does not say plasmapheresis, you will understand that she is doing it on her own and you will be able to ask her ‘Do you have a license for plasmapheresis? How are you doing it?’. In any case, the citizen will be able to become suspicious”, he explained.
“Some work is needed from the citizen, I do not deny it. It is not only the state, to be by your side and lead you by the hand. Because the state cannot do that, but the state can provide you with reliable information in the first year”, he added.
The Health Minister stressed that the system will concern all of Greece, while regarding when it will be put into operation he stated that:
“We will present our plan, how it works, and in order to be able to put it into operation for citizens, an amendment must be passed so that we have legislative authorization. In other words, we will need a few days to pass the law”.
What he said about inspections in private medical practices
Regarding inspections, Mr. Georgiadis stated that inspections were being carried out and are being carried out.
“The whole relevant discussion has arisen from the alleged abolition of SEYP. SEYP was not abolished. It was merged with the Unified Transparency Authority. The Unified Transparency Authority all these years carries out inspections also in private medical practices”.
As he explained, both the EAD and SEYP previously inspect something at the practice level only after a complaint, since “there are far too many private medical practices for inspectors to go and ring the bell at a practice”.
“That is exactly why, long before the 2009 law and the merger of SEYP with EAD the inspection of primary care practices was given to the respective medical associations. The last law that gave this competence to the medical associations was in 2011 by the Papandreou government, that is, by PASOK”, he said.
“We must return to the real world. A central mechanism that can inspect all private medical practices cannot be created, so that we may finally speak a little seriously in this country”, Mr. Georgiadis concluded.
Source: ERTnews