London, United Kingdom – 6 March, 2019 – The Turkish Ministry of Health and the Healthcare
Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) – a global, cause-based, not-for-profit
organization whose mission is to reform the global health ecosystem by leveraging the power of
information and technology – have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to extend the use of
HIMSS’ maturity models across all healthcare provider models in the country. The Memorandum of
Understanding was signed by the Dr. Şuayip Birinci, Deputy Minister of Health in Turkey and Hal Wolf III,
President and CEO of HIMSS and will run from 2019 until 2024
The MoU sets out a five-year long commitment to employ seven HIMSS Analytics maturity models
across Turkey’s extensive network of public hospitals and healthcare systems. One of these, the well
known Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM), measures the level of adoption and
utilization of electronic medical record (EMR) functions in hospitals.
The MoH also reiterated its commitment to an annual HIMSS Eurasia event bringing together health
ministries and health systems from across central Asia – and agreed to be Patron of the HIMSS Turkish
Community which is currently being established with representation on HIMSS’ Community Advisory
Board – in the MoU, signed on 14 February at the event.
“We are very proud of what we have achieved with the digital transformation of our hospitals in recent
years,” said Dr. Şuayip Birinci, Deputy Minister of Health in Turkey. “This agreement reinforces our
commitment to digitizing our hospitals using HIMSS’ maturity models, which are in our eyes second-to-
none across the world.”
“HIMSS and the Ministry of Health have worked closely through the years in the vision and execution of
the Republic of Turkey’s digital transformation. We are privileged to continue our relationship as HIMSS
values the unprecedented achievements of Turkey’s public hospitals” said Hal Wolf III, President and
CEO of HIMSS. “We look forward to expanding our support of their strategies to bring outstanding
health to their citizens and many in their surrounding sphere of influence.”
More than 150 of these hospitals achieved the Stage 6 level in one year (2017), with one of the
country’s hospitals, Tire Public Hospital in Izmir City, being validated at Stage 7, becoming only the
fourth hospital in Europe to achieve this accolade. These developments were part of the Turkish
Ministry of Health’s 2013-2017 strategic plans to increase the quality and efficacy of service delivery
through information and technology.
