Medical Tourism Experts Outlined Role of Modern Technologies in CIS Healthcare

Today, under the auspices of the International Tourism Forum TRAVEL HUB “Commonwealth” a plenary session “Information and Communication Technologies in Healthcare of the CIS Member States” took place in the Tavricheskiy Palace.

The event was moderated by General Director of St. Petersburg Medical Tourism Agency Natalya Yudina and opened by Chairperson of Saint-Petersburg Committee for Tourism Development Sergey Korneev. He stressed that the IPA CIS was a traditional platform for authoritative international meetings, and cooperation with it was very important for St. Petersburg as a major center of culture, innovation and medicine in terms of building interaction with other countries.

Secretary General of the IPA CIS Council Dmitriy Kobitskiy addressed the session participants with a welcoming speech. He recalled that the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly paid great attention to the development of model regulatory documents both in the field of medicine and tourism.

Touching upon the topic of the pandemic, which had made significant adjustments to the schedule of international events, Dmitriy Kobitskiy expressed hope that in the spring of 2022 the International Tourism Forum TRAVEL HUB “Commonwealth” would be held offline.

Professor of Surgery, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, President of the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Bakulev National Medical Research Center of Cardiovascular Surgery” of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation Leo Bokeria also sent a greeting to the participants of the event. Noting that nowadays medical tourism and export of medical services were among the most knowledge-intensive and rapidly developing industries, he pointed out to the importance of development of that area in the CIS and the need for a comprehensive discussion of the issue by all stakeholders.

Consul General of the Republic of Uzbekistan in St. Petersburg Alisher Babayev in his welcoming speech spoke about the potential of his country in terms of the development of medical tourism.

The main report at the session was delivered by the Chairman of the IPA CIS Board of Experts on Public Health, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yury Shcherbuk. He noted that there were a number of serious issues in the health systems of the WHO Member Nations that affected the development of medical tourism. These included, according to the expert, first of all, the predominance of administrative and managerial methods of countering diseases, fragmenting medical care based on commercial interests and giving short-term results; progressive, narrowly focused growth in the volume of expensive high-tech medical care, as well as the constantly growing commercialization of healthcare.