In an analysis published in April 2017 on HealthInvestor Asia, Susann Roth, senior social development specialist at the Asian Development Bank, presents his view of the Vietnamese health market.
She notes that the national healthcare system is currently evolving, ready to make profound changes to develop digital in order to improve the efficiency of its services. To successfully achieve this transformation, the national authorities will have to establish a clear and harmonized legal framework in line with industry professionals wishes.
Vietnam is shifting to a digital economy
Many countries have realized that investing in the area of eHealth is essential to achieve universal health coverage, Susann Roth said. Through the digitization of the industry, the professionals of the sector could unify the fragmented health systems and ensure continuity of care for all patients.
90% of the population with access to mobile phones
« Vietnam is clearly seizing this opportunity, » the expert assured. According to official figures, over 90% of the population currently has access to mobile phones. There are about 120 million mobile phone users and more than half of the Vietnamese uses the internet. Vietnam is now shifting quickly to a digital economy.
The government wants to invest in ICT, particularly in the health sector
Moreover, Vietnam is one of the developing countries with the highest rate of ICT adoption of and the lowest cost of using these technologies, it has enormous potential for e- health.
- In 2014, the government identified ICT as a unique lever to foster the economic growth and social development in all sectors, including health.
- The Ministry of Health followed the recommendations of the government by approving a plan to establish a national health information exchange architecture with defined interoperability standards. « These standards are especially important to support and report care across the continuum of health services. This in turn requires a governance framework to define who reports what to whom, in which format, and spells out clear privacy and security policies, » the specialist said.
Vietnam: the success of the digitization process depends on human interoperability
« As a passionate digital health advocate myself, I welcome Vietnam’s endeavor to digitize its health system. In reality, however, establishing a whole-system approach with the proposed solutions for integration and interoperability is highly complex. First and foremost success will depend on human interoperability, a clear blueprint, and strong leadership. »
Susann Roth recently attended a workshop organized by the Ministry of Health and its General Department of Preventive Medicine to discuss next steps for the deployment of a health information exchange. The aim was to assess the current status of eHealth in the country and discuss the benefits of an architecture based on standardized ICT. For many national leaders of the industry, it was the first time openly to discuss on this particular field.
Big Data management is at the center of the process
Following the event, several objectives were established:
- 1. Identify wish data assets should be shared. For example, Vietnam currently has about 1 000 different laboratory information systems, all based on different standards. This organization makes difficult to develop aggregate reporting. The situation is the same for electronic medical records at the hospital level, which also lack unified formats and standards.
2. Use standards-based interfaces and an infrastructure component called « the master patient index » « main index patient » to bridge care between different care programs and systems.
« The underlying infrastructure, behaviours, and data elements are generic and based on international standards, Susann Roth said. The case study helped Vietnamese health officials realize:
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- why interoperable health information system matters;
- how ICT solutions can link existing systems without creating an entirely new ICT enterprise;
- how data entry burden can be reduced. «
« Vietnam needs a governance framework across the department (…) and clear policies »
The case of the toddler suffering from measles is an example to demonstrate the importance of ICT-driven interoperability in the health sector.
Susann Roth noted that the actors of the country’s industry realized that the use of interoperability standards for data exchange:
- can improve disease surveillance;
- enables easier and faster health data sharing;
- significantly reduces the tedious task of data collection.
« Vietnam is on the right path toward realizing the potential of digitization in its health sector. Now we need a ministry-wide governance framework, officials willing to work together, and clear policies on data sharing and privacy to make it happen. »
Vietnam: the latest initiatives in the eHealth sector
- On March 24, 2017, Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister, Vu Duc Dam, officially launched the NIIS in Hanoi. It evolved from the digital immunization registry ImmReg and VaxTrak, a vaccine tracking tool, both developed and tested by Path, leader in global health innovation (US), beginning in 2012.
The NIIS is an ambitious system that positions Vietnam as one of the global leaders in the digital healthcare market. Health centers around the world, in both developed and developing countries, have relied on paper-based records to record patient and vaccine information by hand.
Path: the leader in health innovation contributes to the digitization of the Vietnamese healthcare system
Path has global expertise in the use of technology to find innovative solutions to meet the challenges of the healthcare sector and has been offering its expertise in the increasingly digitized Vietnam for some years.
The company has undertaken numerous initiatives to encourage the digitization of the Vietnamese healthcare system. Here are the main ones:
- The Digital Immunization Registry project (ImmReg) has demonstrated that a customized electronic registry system allows faster and more efficient management of individual immunization records and vaccine delivery. Using the software developed by Path, health professionals in Vietnam can now generate lists of people due for vaccinations through a web-based application which is accessible on Commune Health Center–based computers and smartphones and that automatically send SMS text vaccination reminders to clients’ mobile phones.
- The Global Health Security Partnership has supported the development of a centralized data collection system and a data visualization platform that will help managers make quick and strategic decisions and reduce the impact of outbreaks.
- The Healthy Market project aims to improve the potential of social media to encourage behavior change by developing a Facebook community which both raises awareness about healthy practices for preventing and managing HIV among young men who have sex with men and connects users to offline HIV services.
Example: The « Xóm Cầu Vồng » project (Rainbow Village) was launched in October 2015 and developed a network of 150,000 followers in one year. Interactive and fun content is published and cross-posted with celebrities and other opinion leaders, while health experts connect directly with Facebook users to provide counseling on a range of HIV-related issues and refer people for community-based HIV testing services.
- Communities for Healthy Hearts have been deployed in Vietnam to improve case management of hypertension at the community level by developing by developing a patient monitoring software program that stores information and indicators related to hypertension patients, such as demographic data, logs of their hypertension screening, and details of their referrals, diagnosis and treatment.
The project also includes the use of an mHealth device, whereby people at risk or receiving treatment for hypertension receive text messages to their mobile phone, which promotes hypertension screening, adherence to treatment, and healthy lifestyle choices.
- The Breath for Life program is tackling the ongoing concern of pediatric tuberculosis (TB) in Vietnam, which is more difficult to diagnose in children than in children the adults. Diagnosis and treatment for TB is concentrated at provincial-level facilities, which means that families living in remote areas often have difficulty accessing these services.
The project has supported the development of an on-line consultation system that allows institutions in different districts to seek consultation and advice from provincial facilities. The ECHO/Zoom software enables real-time remote consultation and facilitates the coordination of treatment between clinicians at the district and provincial levels, a device that reduce the need for patients to travel for diagnosis and treatment.
