The use of IMI in Romania and the exchange of information about doctors

Mr. Alexandru-Ionut CHIUTA, Counsellor, IMI PQ coordinator (LIMIC) and help-desk,

IMI PQ NET Romania methodological expert,National Centre for Recognition and Equivalence of Diplomas

(Romanian ENIC-NARIC)Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports

Study visit at GMC in Manchester, UKNovember 16, 2011

Session 2

Presentation overview (I)1. Who uses IMI in Romania for the recognition of medical profession?

Is the Ministry registered to use IMI? Is the Order of Doctors registered?;

2. How many queries do you receive about doctors on average per month?;

3. How long does it take on average to respond to queries about doctors?;

4. Do the Romanian authorities encounter any difficulties is responding to queries about doctors? If yes, please outline what these difficulties are so that we can have an informed round table discussion;

Presentation overview (II)5. Does the Romanian competent authority for doctors use IMI to send

requests for information about doctors?;6. If yes, how many per month?;7. How long does it take to receive responses?;8. Do the Romanian authorities encounter any difficulties with the

requests they send? If yes, pls provide details, again this will be helpful and inform the discussion afterwards.

1. Who uses IMI in Romania for the recognition of medical profession

The IMI system is used from its beginnings and at present time by:

- the Ministry of Health

- the Romanian College of Physicians (RCP)

These institutions were among the first authorities to use the IMI system.

2. How many queries do you receive about doctors on average per month

Received requests

MonthTota

lJan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Year

2008 - - 5 4 3 10 4 7 6 11 14 65

2009 10 19 12 24 14 37 16 12 15 17 13 25 214

2010 17 23 27 28 16 39 27 31 28 18 32 20 306

2011 19 24 32 25 31 25 23 38 33 42 292

3. How long does it take on average to respond to queries about doctors

3 weeks

There is a large number of requests received by the Romanian Ministry of Health each month, about 70% of all requests received by all the authorities from Romania registered in IMI – this is about 10% of all the requests sent/received in IMI for the Professional Qualifications module.

Only few requests are sent to the Romanian College of Physicians, about 5% of of all requests received by all the authorities from Romania registered in IMI

4. Do the Romanian authorities encounter any difficulties is responding to queries about doctors

The overwhelming majority of questions have been addressed to Romanian competent authorities, which is evident from the trend of migration (doctors leaving Romania, insignificant number of people who come to work temporarily, exceptionally rare to establish for good).-Pre-defined questions are clear and easy to understand.-Free text questions should contain sufficient data to formulate a response within a given deadline.-The need o received copies of the relevant documents as attached files.-Predefined answers are clear.-Comments entered are able to provide further details.-In most cases (with one or two exceptions, due to lack of user in the country) we have responded within the agreed time.-In its actual format, the IMI system is easy to use -In some rare cases IMI gives some errors when loading the pages.or loads slowly the pages.

5. Does the Romanian competent authority for doctors use IMI to send requests for information about doctors?

The Romanian competent authorities used IMI only for a few cases:

Ministry of Health: 9 requests sent since 03.2008

Romanian College of Doctors : no requests sent

Total of 20 requests sent to competent authorities from other Member States:

Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Hungary.

6. If yes, how many per month?

4610 IMI PQ

requestsPeriod

Requests received

PercentageRequests

sentPercentage

379March-

December 2008

59 15,57% 6 1,58%

1404January-

December 2009

211 15,03% 3 0,21%

1836January-

December 2010

296 16,12% 10 0,54%

1508

January-September

2011249 16,51% 1 0,07%

7. How long does it take to receive responses?

For one request about dentists there was no answer for 3-4 months so the request was cancelled.

For another request about architects the answer was provided after 12 months through IMI.

For some other requests we received answers in due time.

All the requests sent from Romania are now closed.

Requests closed end of 09.2011

Requests received

Requests sent Total

with information provided

735 17 752

8. Do the Romanian authorities encounter any difficulties with the requests they send? If yes, pls provide details, again this will be helpful and inform the discussion afterwards.

-availability of the information needed for complete answers (data to be searched in various documents that are also found in universities or at other authorities that are not registered in IMI)- relatively small number of experts who are authorized to respond to the requests of information received;- large number of similar information requests in terms of questions, but for different cases, to be treated separately.-For some questions there is no competent authority registered in IMI to answer (eg. the universities) and we need to wait for their answer.

Conclusions

Romanian authorities receive the largest number of requests in

IMI, around 16,5% of all the requests sent for IMI PQ

The Ministry of Health answers to 70% of these requests and the

Romanian College of Physicians to 5%

Number of active users and the time required to check each case

by contacting other relevant authorities not registered in IMI (eg.

the acredited higher education institutions)

The need to read the answer comments and to answer to these in

other languages (ie. English, French, Italian)

Alexandru-Ionut ChiutaMethodological expert

alexandru.chiuta@medu.edu.ro

www.imipqnet.ro

Thank you!