The aim of the chatbot is to provide actual information on the medicines and expected deliveries to the patients and their closed ones, doctors, civil activists and journalists.
The Telegram bot can be accessed following the link - https://t.me/medpro_ukraine_bot
Video from the Telegram bot presentation - https://youtu.be/NvJBfVOXlFQ (UKR only)
Through the chatbot users can easily access the information on the medicines and medical devices, purchased by the SE "Medical Procurement of Ukraine". In particular, the bot shows the data on the procurement procedures, planned delivery schedule to Ukraine and actual delivery dates to the regions, stock of the medicines etc. In its work the SE “MPU” strives to improve the access of the civil society to the vital information, such as data on procurement of the medicines and expected supplies.
"Very often we are facing the situations when the hospitals refuse to provide patients with the medicines, saying there were no deliveries of the medicines. Sometimes doctors themselves might not have information whether the medicines were delivered to their region or to the hospital. We strive to provide patients with the valuable resource - information. Having data on the supplies, patients might be able to better protect their rights on the free medicines and treatment. Our aim is to make this information as much available as possible", - state Eugenia Mitrokhina, Head of Customer Service Unit of the SE "MPU".
"The information in the system is updated differently. For example, we enter information on the areas of procurement and enumeration of goods once a year, when we receive the relevant documents from Ministry of Healthcare. Data on the progress of procurement procedures and expected deliveries are updated daily. Information on stock is updated twice a month. Currently, the IT team of the SE "Medical Procurement of Ukraine" is working to fill in the information on procurements in 2021, as the first tenders were announced recently, on April 23. We plan to expand the number of services that aim to ensure larger availability and transparency of the information regarding procurements. In particular, we will soon launch our BI system", - explained Alona Zhuzha, Head of the Operational Analytics and IT Department.
We already hold the testing of the chatbot. However, we encourage the users to provide comments on the work of the chatbot or the inaccuracy of the information through the specially created feedback button in the chatbot.
SE "Medical Procurement of Ukraine" is grateful to the USAID Ukraine/UK aid Eurasia Foundation TAPAS Project for supporting the development of the chat-bot, and USAID/SAFEMed project for the technical support in its presentation.