NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT AND ACTION PLAN • interoperability with the external users, for instance State Statistics Office, Ministry of Finance; • application of the international, and especially, EU standards and recommendations; • application of standard, widely accepted technologies, infrastructure and applied software; Negative factors Personnel - the MH does not have the relevant personnel, nonetheless, an IT team must be established which is going to manage the technical aspects of the implementation of the health care information system. Financial - the health care system is over-indebted, which makes the investment in development projects difficult. It is expected that with the successful continuation of the projects underway, especially with the Project for Health Sector Management, to gradually decrease the indebtedness. Infrastructure - the existing infrastructure in the MH, HIF and PHCI, the health care institutions and other stakeholders in the health care sector are below the required level, therefore, significant investments are necessary for the purpose of achieving of the set objective. Positive factors The Project for Health Sector Management, which is conducted in co-operation with the World Bank and the possibility to secure other donations, including the European integration funds, represents a good starting position for implementation of the needed information technology infrastructure. The inclusion of the private sector is a possibility for establishing of new qualitative norms for that portion of the health care institutions, and possibly for the health care insurance. Introduction of Electronic Identity Cards can eventually be used in the improvement of the health care records and identification among the insured parties and the health care institutions, at the same time, securing reduction of the expenses and of the introduction. The prices of the information technology are going down, which can contribute to introduction of integrated solutions of high quality for the health care information technology system in conditions of limited resources for new projects. 2.5.3 Strategic tasks and Stakeholders The Republic of Macedonia has an excellent position to capitalise on the experiences of the countries that have introduced health care IT systems and from the eligible funds from the World Bank projects and from other donors. The project for introduction of new documents for personal identification is also an opportunity to be used for improvement of the records and the identification of the users of the health care services - the citizens. Through the World Bank Project for the Health Sector Management, the major providers of health care services, HIF and MH, shall be encompassed. With that the quality of the biggest portion of the services as well as the largest part of the expenses in the health care sector, shall be under control. NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT AND ACTION PLAN 47