Hanoi (VNA) – Each Vietnamese citizen will havean electronic medical record in late 2019, as heard at an event by theElectronic Health Administration of Vietnam to kick off the national electronichealth record project in Hanoi on June 14.

In his remarks at the event, Deputy Minister of HealthNguyen Viet Tien said a nationwide system of electronic health records isimportant to the development of e-healthcare and smart healthcare in the era ofIndustry 4.0. It will contribute to the modernisation of the healthcare sectorand satisfy people’s medical needs.

Head of the Electronic Health Administration of Vietnam TranQuy Tuong said the agency was tasked by the Ministry of Health to develop adigital system to electronically keep medical information collected from thedatabase of households joining the health insurance regime of Vietnam SocialSecurity. Each individual will be given an identification number associatedwith his/her electronic health record, he added.

The medical record is set to promptly, accurately providehealth state of a person across time to doctors at different-level hospitalsand save time and costs for patients.

It will provide the doctors medical information of apatient necessary for early detection of common diseases at primary careclinics and prevention of severe complications and emergencies. It is alsoexpected to offer accurate data for policy planning of the health sector.

The system is scheduled to be completely built inDecember, 2018 and run on a trial basis in eight cities and provinces acrossthe country between January and June, 2019. It will be deployed on the nationalscale from July next year.

A smart healthcare system that exploits Big Data andartificial intelligence (AI) was set up by the Ministry of Health earlier thisyear to improve the quality of health examinations and medical treatment.

A hospital will be considered “smart” if it uses artificial intelligence and hassoftware to manage information, tests, storage and image transmission,electronic health records and kiosks for patients to search for information.

Patients’ health records will be digitalised under the smart healthcare system.This will allow patients to more easily find and choose the right specialistsfor their medical care as well as make medical appointments.

The results of patients’ tests will be stored in the database, which, for now,is only accessible to doctors. But in the future, patients will also haveaccess to their personal records.

Health officials can also conduct scientific research through the onlinesystem, and patients can ask for professional advice through hospitals’websites and Facebook pages.

Doctors can also provide assistance to doctors at hospitals in remote areas ifthe latter needs help in treating patient. This aid helps prevent transfer ofpatients to big city hospitals, where overloading often occurs.

In the case of epidemics, management agencies can now access the exact timedata to issue effective forecasts. The system also contains information onhealth insurance and other administrative matters.-VNA