Nghe An promotes digital transformation in the healthcare sector

Regarding this issue, Nghe An Newspaper reporter had an interview with pharmacistDoctor Tran Minh Tue - Deputy Director of Nghe An Department of Health.

PV: On August 5, 2022, the Party Executive Committee of Nghe An province issued Resolution No. 09-NQ/TU on digital transformation of Nghe An province by 2025, with a vision to 2030. On August 22, 2022, the Provincial People's Committee also issued Plan No. 586/KH-UBND on digital transformation of Nghe An province by 2025. In the past time, how has the Nghe An health sector implemented these 2 Resolutions and Plans?

Pharmacist Tran Minh Tue:Implementing Resolution No. 09 of the Provincial Party Committee and Plan No. 586 of the People's Committee of Nghe An province, the Department of Health has issued resolutions, plans, decisions, and official dispatches on the implementation of digital transformation of healthcare, application of information technology, deployment of electronic medical records, management of basic medical information, health record software, cashless medical examination and treatment services at medical facilities, etc.

Along with that, the Department of Health has focused on developing digital infrastructure by directing medical examination and treatment facilities in the province to review and invest in equipment and information technology infrastructure of hospitals to meet the infrastructure criteria according to Circular 54/2017/TT-BYT dated December 29, 2017 of the Ministry of Health; directing all units in the industry to invest in online meeting systems, high-speed internet systems, computer systems connected to LAN, internet and software to serve professional work of medical examination and treatment, administrative reform, interconnection of specialized databases, meeting the needs of document management and document operation.

From the source allocated for health care, the Department has invested, purchased, and installed remote medical examination and treatment systems at 15 units (Nghe An General Friendship Hospital, Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, Nghe An Oncology Hospital; Nghe An Trauma and Orthopedics Hospital; Vinh City General Hospital, Yen Thanh General Hospital, and Ky Son, Tuong Duong, Tan Ky, Anh Son, Que Phong, Quy Chau, Quy Hop, Nghia Dan Medical Centers); invested in 460 multidimensional QR code readers to serve health insurance examination and treatment using chip-embedded citizen identification cards, applying VNeID, VssID for 460 commune, ward, and town health stations.

Developing human resources for digital transformation, the whole industry has attracted 112 IT engineers with college and university degrees. Units in the industry have focused on doing well in training to raise awareness of the importance and effective role of applying information technology in digital transformation; improving capacity and level of applying information technology to serve professional work.

Up to now, Nghe An Health sector has made great strides in implementing digital transformation. Units in the sector have been invested in equipment and information technology infrastructure according to Circular 54/BYT criteria at level 2-3. A few units have reached level 5,6 such as: Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, Vinh City General Hospital, Traditional Medicine Hospital, Northwest Regional General Hospital, Quang Khoi General Hospital... 100% of units have used, operated proficiently, stably and effectively information technology equipment and software and performed well in ensuring network information safety and security.

PV: Can you clarify the specific results achieved on each deployed utility application software?

Pharmacist Tran Minh Tue:To date, 100% of medical examination and treatment facilities from the province, district and commune levels have deployed software for medical examination and treatment management and health insurance payment, connecting and communicating data with the Health Insurance Appraisal Information System Data Receiving Portal of the Vietnam Social Security. All medical examination and treatment records are automatically pushed to the Ministry of Health Data Portal and the Health Insurance Appraisal Portal in accordance with regulations. Some units have invested in image storage and transmission systems and testing information systems.

In the use of citizen identification cards, VNeID replaces the Health Insurance card for medical examination and treatment. By September 14, 2023, 528/528 medical facilities in the province have registered for online medical examination, receiving patients with chip-embedded citizen identification cards or via VNeID, VssID applications... Medical facilities also apply information technology to online medical examination registration; deploy the issuance and use of smart medical examination cards to help people register for remote medical examination numbers, reduce waiting time and congestion for patients.

Implementing Plan No. 368/KH-UBND dated July 6, 2020 of the Provincial People's Committee on establishing records, examining and managing people's health in the province, by September 2023, Nghe An had created 3,715,236 records on the system (reaching over 97%); 2,919,911 records had medical examination and treatment data (reaching 83.50%).

The Health sector has deployed shared software at health stations in 21/21 districts, cities and towns in the area. The Health Information Management System has been officially put into operation since May 2022 with 23 modules to help health facilities manage 18 books and different types of reports.

Regarding electronic medical records, Nghe An currently has 4/52 units successfully implementing them (the whole country has 50 hospitals), including: Vinh City General Hospital, Quang Khoi General Hospital, Nghe An Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, and Northwest Regional General Hospital. According to Circular 46, by 2028, Nghe An will have 48 remaining public and non-public health insurance examination and treatment facilities that must implement electronic medical records. The Department of Health is directing strongly to meet this roadmap.

Regarding electronic prescriptions and connection to the national information system on prescription management and prescription drug sales, the Department of Health has approved and issued codes to 593 medical examination and treatment facilities and practitioners. Of these, there are 64 hospitals, 28 medical centers, 40 medical stations, and 364 clinics. 43 facilities have connected prescriptions; 3,458/3,847 doctors have been issued connection codes; on average, 63,345 prescriptions are connected to the national prescription system per week.

The Health sector has also deployed food safety management software from the provincial level to the district and commune levels. As a result, 460 wards, communes, 21 districts, cities and towns have fully entered data into the software system. The data on the software has entered data of 11,775 food production and trading establishments under the management of the Health sector.

Recently, the Department of Health has directed hospitals to coordinate with commercial banks and payment intermediary service providers licensed by the State Bank to accelerate the implementation of various forms of non-cash payment, meeting the needs of people when participating in medical examination and treatment. To date, 28/38 units have implemented payment of hospital fees via banks (reaching a rate of 73.6%).

PV:In the process of digital transformation, what difficulties and problems has Nghe An's health sector encountered?

Pharmacist Tran Minh Tue: Currently, there are still difficulties and obstacles in the process of digital transformation of the health sector, which are: The financial mechanism for the application of medical information technology in general and the implementation of electronic medical records in particular does not exist (there is no expenditure item for information technology, the cost of medical services does not have an information technology component), hospitals mainly use the unit's development investment fund to apply information technology, affecting other hospital activities. Therefore, investing in and upgrading card readers, barcode printers, workstations, servers, and infrastructure systems with enough bandwidth for data transmission is very difficult.

In the process of applying information technology in medical examination and treatment, units are still facing many difficulties, especially in building project documents, outlines, and plans for hiring information technology services. Authorities and sectors have not yet issued rental and purchase prices for software types for medical examination and treatment facilities to have a basis for implementation.

Medical examination and treatment using citizen identification cards is limited because some citizen identification cards of citizens have not yet integrated information in the card (about 2.8%). QR codes of some citizen identification cards are blurred. Some citizen identification cards mistakenly integrate information of one person's health insurance card into the citizen identification of another person. Population data on the system is initialized on the health record software system from the 2020 insurance data in communes and districts, which is different from reality, mainly in terms of administrative information; manual checking at commune-level facilities is difficult.

The network infrastructure system at units that have been used for many years is degrading and not synchronized, especially at commune, ward and town health stations. Many medical examination and treatment facilities have not yet built applications for customer care... Some units only have 1 staff in charge of information technology but they are in charge of many different tasks, in particular, some district-level medical centers do not have information technology staff.

PV: What digital transformation goals has the healthcare sector set for the coming time and what are the solutions to overcome difficulties and obstacles and realize the goals?

Pharmacist Tran Minh Tue:The industry has set a goal that by 2025, 100% of the health information system will be guaranteed information security and network security when put into operation and exploitation; 100% of online public services will be maintained for administrative procedures that are eligible to be built into online public services for the whole province; 100% of the direction, operation and internal management activities of state agencies will be carried out on a comprehensive and unified management platform; 100% of medical facilities will implement non-cash electronic payments; medical examination and treatment facilities will implement remote medical examination and treatment consultation; and online medical examination registration.

Over 90% of people have electronic health records; 95% of commune, ward and town health stations implement prevention, management and treatment of some non-communicable diseases on digital platforms; 100% of infectious diseases and infectious disease cases are managed on digital health platforms; 100% of communes deploy commune health station management software with full functions according to regulations of the Ministry of Health; 100% of Grade 1 public and non-public medical examination and treatment facilities deploy electronic medical records.

The industry continues to promote the effective application of digital technologies: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Internet of Things (IoMT), Blockchain, etc. in medical activities; Moving towards building a smart medical operations center.

To achieve these goals, the health sector will continue to promote propaganda, learning, and raise awareness of Party committees at all levels, each Party member, and all civil servants, public employees, and workers about the necessity of digital transformation; implement digital health institutions; effectively organize and implement digital health transformation plans in accordance with the actual conditions of units and localities.

The sector also promotes the implementation of digital infrastructure, digital platforms and digital health data, especially digital health platforms directed by the Ministry of Health: Platform to support remote medical examination and treatment consultation; Vaccination management platform; Electronic health record platform; Commune health station management platform... deploying synchronous solutions to ensure network safety and security. Along with that, continue to deploy Digital Government, Digital Economy, Digital Society in the health sector. Implement the transformation of health sector activities in the network environment. Focus on training human resources for digital health transformation from the provincial level to the grassroots health level to improve capacity, gradually master digital technologies on big data, mobile, artificial intelligence in the health sector.

PVThank you!