A visit for a better healthcare system in the Ukraine
On 28th November 2017, senior representatives from the Poltova region of Ukraine, including senior health authority personnel and clinicians, as well as representatives from the World Bank visited the University of Liverpool Management School. The aim of their visit was to find out more about the development of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) in the UK as well as its practicality using drug eluting stents. In addition, they wanted to learn about the UK’s experiences with respect to cardiac interventions to manage patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) and other heart conditions.
The visit started with a session which was hosted by Dr. Alan Haycox, Dr. Ruaraidh Hill, and Professor Brian Godman where the topics covered were largely about the development of HTA in the UK, sources and structures of evidence generation in support of HTA, as well as cardiological case studies undertaken by NICE (including drug eluting stents on which Dr. Ruaraidh Hill was a senior researcher). They were also later joined by Professor Tom Walley, Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) HTA Programme, who shared his experiences and expertise built up over a decade working at the very highest level of HTA in the UK.
After this, the group visited the Liverpool Heart and Chest hospital (LHCH) which is seen as the largest and best cardiology hospital in the UK and has been rated ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). After a brief tour, there were talks by Professor Rod Stables, Consultant cardiologist at LHCH and Chair of the academic and research committee of the British Cardiovascular Society, and Matthew Shaw, senior data analyst and also one of the Doctoral students of Dr. Alan Haycox at LHCH, who shared his works in turning data into useful information to support both clinical and non-clinical decision making within the hospital.
There was also a question and answer session which covered various topics such as emergency angiograms and angioplasty (PCI) for patients with coronary heart disease, price difference between bare metal stents and drug-eluting stents in the UK and Ukraine, as well as how the doctors make clinical management decisions using the assistance of Information Technology.