1. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 1 The challenges with Health Information Systems and eHealth in Vietnam Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hoang Phuong, Dr. Tran Tung, Dr. Pham Xuan Viet, Dr. Phi Thị Nguyet Thanh, Msc. Ngo Chi Dung, Eng. Tran Xuan Da IT group, Dept. Science and Training and The Cabinet of the Steering Committee of IT, Ministry of Health, Vietnam Email: nhphuong2008@gmail.com, Mob. 0904 128 118nhphuong2008@gmail.com

2. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 2 Content Introduction Current situation of applying IT in Health in Vietnam The Challenges and Opportunities Solutions Roadmap

3. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 3 Introduction How Vietnam can be a strong country in IT in Health in the future ? Need: Successful factors: Government commitment, Financial support, Infrastructure, Standards in IT in Health, National Medical database, IT in Health working group leadership, education of IT in Health, International cooperation. It lacks Standards in IT in Health, National Medical database, IT working group leadership. Among them, Standards in IT in Health is one of the important factor ! Therefore, today, we discuss about “how to develop the standards of IT in Health ?”.

4. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 4 Current situation of applying IT in Health in Vietnam State’s administrative apparatus is the Ministry of Health, provincial people’s committee, and the administrative units in city or province. The Ministry of Health, central medical level, is in charge of state management function on health and population throughout the country. Provincial people’s committee, of which Health Department is the consultant office to help provincial people’s committee in state management function on health, population within provincial locality. City or provincial medical level directly under central government includes non-productive units directly under Health Department, for examples General Hospitals, Specialty Hospitals, medical centers and branches.

5. Current situation of applying IT in Health in Vietnam (con-ed) The economic sectors (or investments) classify the group as public (state-owned) health care or as private health care. Professional sectors is divided into sectors: Diagnosis and treatment, Nursing and Rehabilitation sector, Preventive and Public Health Care sector, Population and Family Planning sector, Training sector, Medical policies, communication and education sector…. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 5

6. Current situation of applying IT in Health in Vietnam (con-ed) Current state of infrastructure in public e-Health Hospitals National/central hospitals: Many top-level hospitals in Vietnam have individual health information systems, the quality and daily usage of these systems vary. Most of these systems incorporate in some way Medisoft 2003 software. Ministry of Health developed the Medisoft 2003 for hospitals at all levels to send statistics and reports to the Ministry’s Dept. Therapy. Provincial hospitals The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 6

7. Current situation of applying IT in Health in Vietnam (con-ed) Provincial hospitals generally have IT networks, as well as some health information systems with linked databases for patient master indices, consultations and emergency, finance, and pharmacy District hospitals and commune health centers District and commune health centers tend to have just a few computers with dial-up internet connections. Lower- level units derive much of their general medical information from television and newspaper and via training courses. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 7

8. Current situation of applying IT in Health in Vietnam (con-ed) Together with the United Nations Development Program, the Ministry of Health’s Department of Financial Planning developed software for district and commune health information system management; however, this software is not widely used yet. In the next presentations, some reports on applying IT in HIV/AIDS control, traditional medicine, Preventive medicine, and developing EMR and HISs, medical database, PACS.. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 8

9. 9 The Challenges and Opportunities About Data center and National medical database: MOH í still not have realized general planning of IT infrastructure in MoH of Vietnam, therefore every departments of MOH develop their own server, equipments, software etc and it causes the wast about resources of It and we can not manage for whole MOH. At present, every departments of MOH develop their own database and we still not develop the national medical database. We must determine regulations and standards for infrastructure of information technology and for data security for LAN and data in MOH.

10. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 10 The Challenges and Opportunities There is no standardized health statistic information system from communes to province department and MOH. Therefore data collected may not correct. Data and EMR/EHR between hospitals from districts, provinces and central are stil not exchanged. It need to develop exchange protocol for EMR/EHR between hospital from clinic to provincial hospitals to central hospitals. Patient ID atr still not standardized for all hosptial in the whole country. Each hospital defines their own patient ID. Telemedicine and telehealth are still not applied in Vietnam in order the medical doctors of central hospitals can help the coleagues in hospital in small cities and rural area the best healthcare through consultation, and medical services..

11. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 11 The Challenges and Opportunities MOH must focus on develop regulation and standards for applying health activities in networking and applying information technology to adapt need of increasing IT applications in Vietnam

12. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 12 Roadmap Developing regulation for Health activities in networking such as LAN, WAN,etc). It is a legal base for applying IT in practice. Develop a pilot of exchange protocol based on HL7 for exchange EMR/EHR with hospital with cental levels to provincial level and clinic. Developing data center and national database in MIH to help MOH in manage and make work operation. Developing health statistic information system from districs to central level and MOH. Web based of DHIS approach may be one good choice.

13. The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 13 Roadmap Applying Web based hospital information systems for provincial hospital of 63 provinces. Provincial department can store data in their data center and therefore statistic data or EMR and EHR can send and exchange between departments and MOH.

14. Thank you for your attention ! Questions for discussion ! The workshop on Standards and interoperabilty of Health Information Systems, HoiAn, 4-7 April 2011 14