Patients will have a more active role in evaluating services offered through Gesy, Health Minister Popi Kanari said on Friday after a Cabinet meeting.

The evaluation process is set to begin in three months, as the ministry prepares a series of targeted questionnaires that deal with outpatient health services, Kanari stressed.

“This mechanism will deal with evaluating services available to beneficiaries,” and is being prepared with the support of academics specialising in health.

Responsible for implementing the system will be the Health Insurance Organisation (HIO) due to issues raised by the personal data commissioner on protecting the privacy rights of beneficiaries.

Similarly, the deputy ministry of research will take on the task of preparing the digital questionnaire, and the data collected will be sent on to the health ministry which will use the results to evaluate Gesy and matters of improvement.

Kanari specified there will be a different questionnaire for each type of care available – meaning a different set of questions for surgeries and a different list for physiotherapy.

“It will be the quality of service offered that will be evaluated, not the provider,” she noted.

Once a patient submits a request for a healthcare service, they will automatically receive a link referring them to the HIO website with a questionnaire including four to five questions.

“The HIO already has a similar system for inpatient services, therefore this will be a parallel means of evaluating Gesy.”

She stressed it would take the deputy research ministry around three months to set up the technical matters and then the questionnaire should be good to go.

“The benefits for beneficiaries will be that they can tell us what they think of the system, so we can offer them a better one,” Kanari said.