Department of Medical and Pharmaceutical Informatics and Advanced Technologies

Head of the Department:
Oleksii RYZHOV, Professor, Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Historical Reference

The Department was established in 1996 on the basis of the "Informatics" course and the Center for New Information Technologies (CNIT). Since then and until now, the Department is headed by Professor Oleksii Ryzhov. Scientific activity of Professor Ryzhov is dedicated to the development of a methodology for formalizing medical and biological knowledge based on ontology and cognitive technologies of e-learning. Professor Ryzhov developed the concept of organizing a single cloud educational space in the MS Office 365 environment and the introduction of new technologies for organizing the learning process in a distance format. On the basis of this concept the program of introduction of new organizational forms of training is developed for all departments of the University. In 2020, Professor Ryzhov received an award — the Order "For Merits to the Zaporizhzhia" of the III degree.

Since 2003, the Department has been actively implementing distance education technologies in the educational process. In 2005, the Center for Distance Education and Telemedicine (CDET) was opened on the basis of the Department, where full-time and part-time students study (based on the RATOS and MS Office 365 systems). Also, the Center for Distance Education and Telemedicine has opened distance training courses for entrants to medical HEI.

During the activity of the Department its employees have defended 7 candidate and 1 doctoral dissertations.

Since 2006, the Department together with the All-Ukrainian public organization "Association of Specialists in Medical Informatics, Statistics and Biomedical Engineering" and the public organization "Computer Medicine Ukrainian Association" organizes and conducts annual international scientific-practical video conference "Current Issues of Distance Education and Telemedicine". Every year among participants of this conferences there are medical educational institutions of Ukraine and many foreign countries: Great Britain, India, the USA, Poland, Greece, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Georgia and others.

Educational Disciplines

• Fundamentals of Informatics — Preparatory Faculty.
• Medical Informatics — first and second years of the Medical Faculties Nos. 1 and 2 and International Faculty No. 2, specialties 222 Medicine, 228 Pediatrics, 221 Dentistry and 224 Technologies of Medical Diagnosis and Treatment.
• Information Technologies in Pharmacy — first and second years of the Pharmaceutical Faculties Nos. 1 and 2 and International Faculty No. 2, specialty 226 Pharmacy, Industrial Pharmacy: educational programs "Pharmacy" and "Technology of Perfume-Cosmetic Preparations" (full-time and part-time).
• Computer Modeling in Pharmacy — fourth year of the Pharmaceutical Faculties Nos. 1 and 2 and International Faculty No. 2, specialty 226 Pharmacy, Industrial Pharmacy: educational programs "Pharmacy" and "Technology of Perfume-Cosmetic Preparations" (full-time and part-time).
• Medical Informatics — second year of the International Faculty No. 2, specialty 222 Medicine: educational program "General Medicine" (full-time).
• courses on the use of modern information technologies in the educational process for lecturers of other departments of ZSMPhU.

Educational and Methodical Work

Training of students at the Department is based on modern principles of blended learning, namely: providing methodological and informational organization of the educational process and independent work of students; introduction of new distance forms of learning and students' knowledge control.

According to the curricula, working programs have been developed for all academic disciplines assigned to the Department. All disciplines are fully provided with methodical materials and online courses on the edX platform. Educational and methodical materials for students are constantly updated.

Original lectures are taught using modern multimedia technologies. Lecture presentations are available to students in the digital library.

One of the priority areas of work of Department lecturers is the development of technologies for the use of MS Office 365 cloud technologies in the educational process. It is in the MS Office 365 environment the Department organized remote practical and independent work of students, allowing to make communication between lecturers and students more mobile and efficient. Lecturers share online tasks for practical or independent work using modern cloud services like MS OneDrive and MS Teams. Introduced by the Department adaptive learning content in Informatics allows you to customize the learning process, taking into account the general level of training with which students come to the University, and creates conditions for the disclosure of individual abilities and development of their professional interests.

Lecturers of the Department constantly take part in scientific and methodical conferences devoted to the development and application of the latest information technologies for teaching with the use of information tools in the educational process of medical higher education institutions. During the quarantine period of 2020, all lecturers of the Department took specialization courses for teachers-innovators of the Microsoft Corporation under the program "Organization of Distance Learning Based on MS Teams Cloud Services" and received Microsoft Certificates of Recognition in the field of education. Employees of the Department regularly conduct seminars, trainings and technical support of all lecturers of ZSMPhU on the introduction of remote technologies in the educational process.

Scientific Directions and Achievements

The scientific work of the Department is aimed at the development of mathematical apparatus for the formalization of medical and biological fields in order to develop software and tools for creating knowledge bases. Knowledge bases in specific clinical and biological disciplines are being developed in order to create adaptive intelligent educational systems.

The Department continues research on "HSP70/HIF-1a — Mediated Mechanisms of Endogenous Neuroprotection: Development of Approaches to Pharmacological Regulation" (state registration No. 0117U000658).

The practical implementation of the achievements of the Department's research on "Methodological, Pedagogical and Technological Support of Professional Training in Medical HEI on Basis of Intelligent Computer Systems" allowed to introduce a system of distance learning in all departments of ZSMPhU since 2016.

Since 2019, the Department is also working on "Optimization of Screening of Antioxidant Activity for Reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen Species in Number of Xanthine Derivatives Using Software".

Within the framework of the above-mentioned topics the following directions of scientific research are realized at the Department:

• formalization of medical and biological knowledge on the basis of ontologies;
• cognitive technologies of teaching medical HEI students;
• ergatic systems influence on the functional state of students;
• use of information technologies in legal training of medical HEI students;
• development of a cloud-based learning environment for the organization of e-distance learning in medical HEI;
• socio-economic aspects of the development of distance education in medical HEI;
• pedagogical bases of formation of professional skills of future physicians, studying in HEI.

The practical work of the staff of the Department is to develop a computerized system of distance education in the system of medical and pharmaceutical education with quality control of education based on a formalized model of knowledge of specialists in pharmacy and medicine.

Under the leadership of Professor Ryzhov 5 candidate and 2 doctoral dissertations has been defended.

Cooperation with Other Institutions

The Department actively cooperates with many Ukrainian and foreign medical higher education institutions. Among them, in particular:

• Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education (Kyiv, Ukraine);
• National University of Pharmacy (Kharkiv, Ukraine);
• Kharkiv Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education (Kharkiv, Ukraine)
• Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (Kyiv, Ukraine);
• Medical Institute of Sumy State University (Sumy, Ukraine);
• I. Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University (Ternopil, Ukraine);
• Center for International Medical Programs (New York, USA);
• ICoDE Systems, LLC (New York, USA);
• Neo Educational Organization (Hyderabad, India);
• St. George's University (London, UK);
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki, Greece);
• University of Nicosia (Nicosia, Cyprus);
• David Tvildiani Medical University (Tbilisi, Georgia);
• Akaki Tsereteli State University (Kutaisi, Georgia);
• Astana Medical University (Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan);
• Karaganda Medical University (Karaganda, Kazakhstan);
• German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (Saarbrücken, Germany).

Address: 26 Maiakovskoho Ave., Zaporizhzhia, 69035, Ukraine

Telephone: +380 61 239 33 01