Health Ministry seeks to boost IT application in management hinh anh 1Medical workers examine a patient's health condition (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Health on November 5 organised an online meeting on accelerating the application of information technology in the management of medical examination and treatment as well as health insurance payment.

The meeting was an effort to implement Resolution 36a/NQ-CP of the Government.

Deputy Minister of Health Pham Le Tuan said in the past years, the ministry has coordinated with the Vietnam Social Insurance and relevant agencies to implement a pilot project with the assistance from the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) and the military telecommunication group (Viettel).

According to the ministry’s Department of Information Technology, all public services of the ministry have been publicly published on the ministry’s portal and all online services have achieved level 2; and seven online services at level 3 and 4 in terms of effective operation.

The ministry plans to complete all 14 online public services at level 4 in the fields of environment and health in November.

According to statistics in 2014, all central hospitals, 68 percent of provincial hospitals and 61 percent of all district-level hospitals implemented software on the management of examination and treatment and 95 percent of special-level hospitals and class-I hospitals formed IT divisions and the majority of provincial hospitals has IT employees.

Deputy Head of the Department of Health Insurance Dang Hong Nam said the IT application at health facilities in Vietnam has been done by hospitals and lacked connectivity and a shared database.

According to Nam, since April, 2015 the health sector has piloted connecting the health insurance data in four levels in six provinces – Bac Ninh, Thai Nguyen, Hai Phong, Tien Giang, Ninh Binh and Nghe An.

The ministry coordinated with Viettel to pilot the health management system at communes and wards, including collecting health data at health centres in Ha Long city of Quang Ninh province, Cam Xuyen district in Ha Tinh province and Cam Lam district in Khanh Hoa province.-VNA
VNA