Doctors at Binh Dan Hospital in HCM City’s District 3 use robots to assist in surgeries (Photo courtesy of the hospital) HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Health has sped upthe process of building a database and adopting IT as instructed by the municipalParty Committee.
They wererequired as part of the smart city project, work on which began more than 18months ago.
NguyenThien Nhan, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee, at a meeting held toreview the project progress in June, had instructed departments includinghealth to publish what they would need and do in the third quarter so thatcompanies in relevant fields such as IT could take part in bids for the work.
AssocProf Dr Tang Chi Thuong, the department’s deputy head, said: “We need to domany things to usher in smart health.”
Smarthealth, which the department is developing, aims to serve the public better andmake the use of healthcare services and sending feedback to the departmentconvenient, according to Thuong.
It alsoaims to improve how doctors access the latest professional knowledge andtechnologies to reduce medical errors.
It seeksto streamline administrative procedures at hospitals and the department.
Thedepartment has to create its own database and connect it with the city’s tocreate a foundation for a smart city.
Health facilities in the city had to create IT infrastructures, he said, adding thatwhile many were diligent others were not, leading to inconsistency.
This yearthe department would digitise health records at 24 ward and commune healthstations operating as family medicine clinics if approved by the Department ofInformation and Communication, he said.
It wasalso developing software for managing information about individuals’ health atthe 24 health stations, he said.
It hadset up an IT system for telemedicine linking them and city-level hospitals toimprove the quality of primary healthcare since March, he said.
It hadcollaborated with the HCM City University of Technology for a project to makeelectronic health records uniform so that hospitals could exchange the data, hesaid.
In 2016,the department started to operate an electronic portal which individuals andcompanies could access to search for information about licences and others.
It hasnow incorporated other utilities such as messages and emails to keep track ofthe department’s processing of applications.
This yearit has used IT to connect with medicine suppliers and traders in the city andlink with national pharmaceutical database as required under the ministry’sroadmap.
More than6,000 suppliers and traders have so far linked with the national database.
A systemto manage the supply and use of drugs at hospitals under the department’smanagement will be developed to prevent medicine shortages.
Thedepartment expects the Department of Information and Communication to providefunds for this year.
The cityhas many hospitals under the management of the Ministry of Health and others.
Thuongsaid the department had developed software to help hospital administratorsmanage better, especially finance, when they get in administrative autonomy.
Moreover,the department has created many other IT applications for management andissuing disease outbreak warnings.
Manyhospitals in the city use robots and artificial intelligence for diagnosis andtreatment.
Thu DucDistrict Hospital has successfully digitised health records stored in itswarehouse as of 2015. More than 6,000 records have so far been digitised.
Thiswould help store patients’ records for longer and doctors get easy access tothem for treatment and conducting research, Thuong said.
Thedepartment planned to digitise more hospitals’ records, he added.
Thedepartment had to hire many IT experts and set up an IT board for consultationand implementation of smart health, he said.
Thecountry has a major need for personnel who have understanding of both health,especially hospital healthcare services, and IT, according to the department.
Mosthospitals have a shortage of such medical informatics specialists while thecountry’s universities and colleges do not train people in this.
Thisshortage is a hurdle to the health sector using IT more efficiently and improvingthe efficiency and safety of healthcare services, especially at hospitals.
Manyhospitals have to employ IT engineers who had to acquire expertise in health ontheir own.
Somehospitals have doctors interested in IT and learning it.-VNS/VNA
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