Ukraine drafts law to regulate AI in medicine as 80.5% of medics use it

Ukraine's Health Ministry is drafting comprehensive legislation to regulate artificial intelligence in medicine, Health Minister Viktor Liashko said on Friday, Nov. 13, citing a ministry survey showing that 80.5% of medical workers already use the technology.

The bill would set clear rules for developing and using medical AI systems, classify them by risk level and require both providers and users to meet standards of safety, transparency and accountability. Liashko said the draft would soon be presented for public discussion, without giving a precise date. "AI must be used under proper supervision by medical professionals," he said.

The survey, carried out under WINWIN 2030, Ukraine's digital development strategy, and published in late August, covered more than 7,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and heads of medical institutions. It found that 21.6% use AI tools regularly and 58.9% occasionally. Some 65.7% said they support the use of AI in health care, with backing strongest in the private sector.

Most respondents want AI to help them find clinical guidelines and protocols (57.4%) and regulatory documents (54.1%). About a third want it for differential diagnosis or for planning their work, and 31% for drafting medical records. Among the more than 300 patients surveyed, 67.5% supported the use of AI in medicine, most of them on condition that a doctor makes the final decision. The survey also covered 39 businesses and organizations, including software developers and medical device makers.

Liashko said the absence of comprehensive regulation leaves developers and medical institutions facing uncertainty, making it harder to scale promising solutions.

The ministry's move comes as Ukraine uses AI across other sectors. The Defence Ministry said in June that the military had carried out more than 50,000 logistics and evacuation missions using ground robotic systems since the start of the year. On Oct. 5, Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said robotic machine-gun turrets using AI and machine vision had begun intercepting jet-powered drones, including Russia's Geran-5.

On Oct. 16, the government led by Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal approved an experimental project to use drones to carry blood samples and donor organs between hospitals. The first site, the Health Ministry's Heart Institute in Kyiv, already operates three specialized drones that can fly up to 700 kilometers.