HCM City (VNS/VNA) - The developmentof technologies such as 4G, 5G, internet of things and artificial intelligencehas rapidly changed the healthcare sector’s landscape globally, including in Vietnam,with more organisations adopting digitisation, according to experts.

The goal is to have multiple affiliated organisations sharingpatients’ digitised medical records to provide more holistic health care.

Many health care institutions are also using smart equipmentto carry out conventional tasks. For example, various devices measuring vital signstoday are directly connected to the hospital’s systems. Once measurements aretaken, the data is incorporated directly in the patient’s medical recordswithout the need for manual intervention.

New technologies have enabled the health care industry to carryout remote operations. For instance, earlier this year, a surgeon in Chinasuccessfully carried out an operation remotely.

Digitisation across the health care industry has helpedservice providers improve the quality of care and accelerate medical breakthroughsfor better patient outcomes and mitigate the rising cost of health care.

The Vietnamese Government is also supporting thedigitalisation of healthcare, launching projects to encourage and enabledigital health solutions to be adopted around the country.

According to the Ministry of Health, all health careestablishments will complete digitisation of medical records by 2030.

According to the Australian Trade and Investment Commission(Austrade) in Vietnam, Vietnam’s economic growth, health-conscious populationand fast-developing 4G and 5G infrastructure provide the perfect environmentfor digital health solutions.

There is strong interest in telemedicine and advancedtechnologies and systems that can improve decision making, improve operationalefficiency and enhance patient care and experience, it said.

Yeo Siang Tiong, general manager of Kaspersky Lab SoutheastAsia, said most hospitals were in the first stage of digital transformation,digitising simple data such as patient records, personal information, pastdiagnosis, and medicine.

But thedigitisation of the healthcare industry had led to a massive increase in thenumber of targeted attacks against the sector, he said.

“The health caresector tracks a person’s medical history, personal information, sometimes theyalso track who their parents are, and genetic conditions that pass down fromparents to child.

“Some of this information is actually worth more than a bankcard.”

In addition,"the sector is less protected than sectors such as banking and finance,"he said.

In the health careindustry, cyber security should not be taken slightly because any issue couldbe a matter of “life and death,” he warned.

“What would happen when you need to treat a patient in anemergency room, but the information is suddenly not available. It is a life anddeath situation. It is actually very dangerous.”

At a recent conference on cybersecurity in the health caresector, experts said the consequences of a breach could be quite detrimentalsince health care records are highly personal and sensitive in nature.

If patients’records were stolen, their private data could be traded on the dark web to beexploited by cybercriminals for scams and frauds, and worse still it couldcause tremendous trauma to the patients, they said.

Yeo said to protect the healthcare industry from cybercrimes,it was very important to “raise security awareness not just among IT workersbut also users of the equipment, doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers.”

"A lot ofhospitals do not have chief security information officers," he said,suggesting that they should focus on developing human resources to ensure cybersecurity, he said.

The health care sector is a critical one, andtherefore hospitals, public and private, should start drafting regulations toaddress the rising threats, according to Yeo./.