After three years of intensive work, we successfully completed the project “Sector Program Health V – Component B: Sustainability” in April 2026. Funded by KfW Development Bank as part of German-Kyrgyz financial cooperation, implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic, under the consortium leadership of GITEC-IGIP together with Sana Medical Technology Service Center, local partners, and us as Samedis.care.
What it was all about
Like many countries, Kyrgyzstan faced a structural problem: while investments in medical equipment and infrastructure were being made, maintenance, lifecycle management, and reliable inventory data were lacking. Without an inventory, there can be no planning. Without maintenance, hospitals cannot operate reliably. The goal of the project was therefore to establish a sustainable, nationwide system for the inventory and maintenance of medical equipment in the Kyrgyz healthcare system.
What's on now
Samedis.care is currently in use there and has been officially adopted by the ministry as the national system. As of March 2026:
- 198 public health facilities are connected to the system—and the number continues to grow, as the DMMD continues to expand on its own.
- 46,613 medical devices have been inventoried. When the system was handed over to the ministry, there were around 22,000—the rest were added by the national teams themselves. For us, this is the most important indicator: the system is being supported, not just operated.
- 1,713 employees—including biomedical technicians, nursing supervisors, and administrative staff—were trained in the use of Samedis, inventory management, and preventive maintenance.
- Covering seven regions, from the north (Bishkek/Chui) through Osh, Batken, and Jalal-Abad to Talas and Naryn.
Responsibility for day-to-day operations lies with the Department of Medicines and Medical Devices (DMMD) and the E-Health Center—exactly where it belongs in the long term.
Who actually wore that?
At Samedis.care, we provided the software, IT consulting, and platform solutions. But a project of this depth and scope isn’t built on software alone. It’s built on medical technology expertise, organizational development, process-oriented thinking, governance—and on the people who spend months working in clinics, regional centers, and ministries to elevate an entire country to a new level.
- The team at GITEC-IGIP, led by Dr. Beatriz Cebolla, conceived and coordinated the entire project, guiding it through various phases, regions, and institutional changes over the course of three years. Project management on this scale and in this environment is an art in itself—and it was executed here at a very high level.
- The team at Sana MTSZ and Sana SKS, led by Alexander Riefer, Vadim Keil, Tino Jakob, and Tina Breuer, laid the medical technology foundation: device categories, maintenance concepts, PPM plans, risk classification, and training for biomedical engineers. This is the backbone of any sustainable maintenance system—and without this backbone, inventory software would be nothing more than an empty database.
- Meirovich Consulting, led by Claudio Meirovich, focuses on institutional structures, responsibilities, and sustainable implementation—factors that often make the difference between a successful rollout and a system that is viable in the long term in a project of this kind.
- The local partners—LLC Family Medicine Specialists and the Public Association, represented by Kurmanbek Mamayusupov and Kerez Kelishova—have provided access, language skills, trust, and institutional understanding, without which no project of this scale could succeed in Kyrgyzstan.
- The DMMD team and the regional coordinators have outgrown the project. They haven’t just learned how to use the system—they’ve taken it on, carried it forward, and rolled it out to other institutions on their own initiative. That was exactly the goal.
- 1,713 technicians, nursing supervisors, and administrative staff at the facilities who took on an additional task this morning: recording equipment, documenting maintenance, and modifying processes. Without their willingness to do so, the system would have remained merely a theory.
In this project, Samedis is the tool. The system is shaped by the people who use it.
Our commitment to sustainability: permanently free for public institutions
During my last official visit to Bishkek, I signed a licensing agreement with the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health, represented by Mr. Temirbek Erkinov, Deputy Minister of Health for Digital Development, which secures the long-term foundation of the project:
Samedis.care is making the Samedis@Government platform available to the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health for use by all public healthcare facilities.
This enables the state to set standards for everyone and, in subsequent steps, to involve manufacturers, suppliers, service providers, and the private sector in order to ensure the sustainable use of medical technology for the benefit of patients.
Why we do it this way
We are a business, not an NGO—and yet this was not a difficult decision for us. A country with limited resources is currently establishing a national system for sustainable medical device management. Our role in this should not be to drain budgets that are meant for spare parts, training, and repairs. Our contribution is the software—free of charge, reliable, and long-lasting. The rest—governance, data quality, and a culture of maintenance—is being built in Kyrgyzstan by Kyrgyz institutions and experts.
What we're taking with us
Three years, seven regions, one ministry, one consortium, countless institutions. Above all, we’ve learned this: technology is the smaller part. The larger part is the institutional backbone—clear responsibilities, well-defined regulations as a legal foundation, solid medical technology expertise, and local people who make the system their own. That is exactly what has happened in recent months—and the credit for this goes above all to our colleagues at GITEC-IGIP, Sana MTSZ, Sana SKS, our local partners, and the DMMD team.
The project is complete. Samedis.care in Kyrgyzstan is just getting started.
– Yves Rausch, CTO, Samedis.care GmbH