A project to create an intelligent health
system for HCM City will be submitted to the People’s Committee next month, Le
Thai Hy, head of the city Department of Information and Communication has said.
Speaking
at the 2016 Vietnam ICT Outlook conference held by the HCM City Computer
Association yesterday, he said details of the project would be published in the
media to gather opinions from IT companies, health facilities and the public.
He sought
policy assistance from the Government to carry out the project, the first of
its kind in the country.
Dr Tang
Chi Thuong, deputy head of the city Department of Health, said his department
is working with DoIC to establish a common data centre for the health sector by
next year.
A year
later comprehensive IT infrastructure would be set up for the healthcare sector
meeting the needs of all health facilities in the city, he said.
In recent
years the department has been urging health facilities as well as managers of
the healthcare sector to use IT to provide better services to patients, he
said.
“But the
IT application remains limited. IT infrastructure at health facilities only
meets basic needs. Information safety still does not get sufficient attention.”
Software
and databases used at health facilities are not identical, leading to
difficulties in exchanging information with each other, according to the
official.
A
recently completed study of IT use at 92 hospitals, 24 preventive health
centers and 319 other health centers in the city found a shortage of servers
and computers at district-level facilities, he said.
Ten
hospitals were yet to use hospital management software, and 92 per cent of
health centers did not use software for management of diagnosis and treatment,
he said.
Insufficient
funds and human resources were major barriers to using IT, he said.
Of 92
hospitals surveyed, only 73 have specialist IT staff, he added.
Phi Anh
Tuan, vice chairman of the HCM City Computer Association, suggested that the
Department of Health should encourage health facilities to take advantage of
cloud computing to overcome the resource shortage.
The
facilities should change their mindset and lease infrastructure, software and
services rather than buy them, he said.
The
Government should have clearer regulations to enable this, he added.
Le Manh
Ha, general secretary of the National Committee on IT Application, said every
hospital should take the initiative to use IT to improve their efficiency.
The 2016
Vietnam ICT Outlook Conference also featured solutions developed by companies
like Lac Viet Computing Corp, Microsoft, Panasonic and others.
VNS
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