The Ministry of Health has launched a grassroots health information management app, a social network, and an individual health record platform as part of its Ehealth Vietnam Summit 2020 held recently in Hanoi.

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long speaks at the
Ehealth Vietnam Summit 2020 (Photo: VNA)

The V20 app is expected to completely transform nearly 12,000 health clinics nationwide. Paperwork, which used to cost these establishments 50 to 70% of their total working time for making reports, will be managed on a single app starting January 2021.

The Vietnamese health network, the first social network of the sector, meanwhile, aims to boost connection, sharing, and support the training of more than 500,000 medical staff across the nation. The ministry requires each upper-level doctor to make friends and assist four doctors at the provincial level, four health workers at the district level and two health workers at the commune level.

The platform, meanwhile, was built for a life-time management of each person from the womb, birth, to death. It will link together the data of all medical facilities involved and of the Vietnam Social Security in a bid to form a national health treatment database.

"Digital transformation in the medical sector includes the comprehensive application of information technology, with a special focus on modern digital technologies, leading to a positive change in all medical activities of the health sector. We do not set a target on quantity but the main goal is to better serve the people, to access more convenient and high-quality medical services," said Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long at the event.

Long said that despite having to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the health sector still has made efforts in digital transformation and has gained encouraging results in the past year.

In the administrative field, 100 percent of procedures were provided with online public services at level 4, while 100 percent of documents at the health ministry have been processed online and applied digital signatures. The ministry will also operate an application for tracking the progress and handling bottlenecks in processing.

“In the future, we commit to cut 30% of administrative procedures to create better conditions for people and businesses,” said Long.

In November, the Ministry of Health also launched the medical public portal that publicises all medical services provided by the health sector. At the moment, people can access and monitor over 62,000 pharmaceutical products, more than 17,000 pieces of medical equipment and materials, more than 93,000 bidding results and prices for medical services announced by more than 1,400 medical facilities.

In the near future, the health ministry will publicise all retail pharmaceuticals and supplement food prices, helping people easily look up drug prices and compare prices at stores for the most suitable choice.

Information technology has also contributed greatly to help Vietnam control the pandemic. Vietnam is also one of the first countries to apply electronic medical declarations, Bluezone tracing applications and COVID-19 safety maps.

“Up to now, Vietnam is one of the most successful nations in the fight against COVID-19 using the most economical and effective models," said the Minister of Health.

Vietnam has launched a remote health examination and treatment network with more than 1,500 medical facilities, helping patients at lower levels access quality services by doctors of upper levels. By 2025, 100 percent of the country’s medical facilities will participate in the network, including private health facilities.

Regarding personal electronic health records, the Ministry of Health has cooperated with the Vietnam Social Security to establish nearly 98 million health records with 42 professional specialties for outpatients. Electronic personal health records will be applied for all outpatients from July next year, according to the minister.

“The goal of the health sector is to build a smart health system. Health facilities spend time on medical examination and treatment, not for procedures and paperwork,” added Long.

In his speech at the summit, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam praised the efforts of the Health Ministry and its collaboration with other ministries and sectors in its IT application process.

He recommended the sector to promote innovative methods, pay attention to a legal framework, policy and finance serving the work, and speed up the building of an automatic health consultation system for people.

The development of remote health examination and treatment as well as digital personal health records are also key tasks, Dam added.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said that his ministry committed to accompany the Ministry of Health in the digital transformation journey.

Vietnam has a strong force of digital technology businesses, with nearly 60,000 businesses and over 1 million employees, ready to solve most of the problems of the health sector, Hung said.