Government anticipates target of 100% digital services for 2029

“Twe had the goal by 2030, but with an effort we will manage to reduce in a few months and we will achieve 100% of digital services ", said journalists Gonçalo Matias.

The anticipation of the date for the end of the term of office of the Government was advanced by the minister in his intervention on the occasion of the inauguration of the Citizen Space at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology (IPO) in Coimbra, which was attended by the Minister of Health, Ana Paula Martins, the President of the IPO of Coimbra, Margarida Ornelas, as well as the President of the Chamber of Coimbra, Ana Abrunhosa, and the President of the Agency for the Technological Reform of the State (ARTE), Manuel Dias.

“It is an attainable goal. Other European countries have already achieved this,” he stressed.

Gonçalo Matias argued that the digitization of services “is very important, because it also brings humanization”, exemplifying with the space inaugurated today in the IPO of Coimbra.

“ It is only because we have digital services that we can open in Coimbra IPO a Citizen's Space, which will allow people, many of them with diseases, with vulnerabilities, to deal with their issues with the State without having to move ", justified.

By the end of the year, he added, the government intends to make 1,200 Citizen Spaces available throughout the country.

The minister said that the government is finalizing the interoperability law, which “will be a fundamental diploma”, which allows “public services to have cross-information and can flow information”, preventing citizens from having to travel to various services.

“ The great goal in this digitisation effort, and with interoperability, is to ensure that we speak to a voice. The state is only one”, he said.

In her speech, Health Minister Ana Paula Martins stated that the opening of Citizen Space in the IPO of Coimbra is “to affirm a different way” of serving citizens.

“ Everything the State can do to simplify people’s lives is no longer an administrative detail, to become a concrete response to their needs”, he said.

For Ana Paula Martins, digital transformation “only makes sense when it brings people’s services closer together, reduces inequalities and ensures that no one is left behind”.

“ Citizen Spaces are an excellent example of this transformation made with humanity, where technological innovation is combined with personalized service and we promote, at the same time, inclusion and digital literacy ", said.

The minister also stressed the course of the Coimbra IPO over six decades, recognized in Portugal and Europe, noting that it is also “one of the institutions that lives one of the largest investment cycles in its history”.

“ The requalification of the Surgery and Imagiology building, together with the complementary interventions necessary to ensure the continuity of the care activity, are an investment of more than EUR 40 million, mainly financed by European funds, which add up to EUR 33 million of investment supported by the PRR [Recovery and Resilience Plan] to strengthen the technological capacity of the institute, which needed so much”, he said.

According to Ana Paula Martins, the IPO of Coimbra, even during the period of works, continued “to increase its care activity” and today presents “the best national indicators of access and response to patients”.