The Ministry of Health is seeking opinions on a draft circular on interlinking test results and paraclinical services between health insurance medical examination and treatment facilities. If applied, patients can reuse test and scan results that are still valid instead of having to redo them when transferring to a medical facility.
Proposal to interlink 441 tests and paraclinical techniques
According to the draft, the Ministry of Health proposes to interlink 441 testing and electrooptical techniques, including 367 electrooptical techniques, 26 microbial - parasitic techniques, 27 hematology - blood transfusion techniques and 21 biochemical techniques.
The scope of interconnection is expanded from testing to diagnostic imaging such as X-ray, CT, MRI. With electrophoresis, interconnected data not only includes conclusions but also images performed at medical examination and treatment facilities.
The time to use the results is calculated from the time of sampling for testing and from the time of performing the technique for electrophoresis. Depending on the test group, the expected interconnection time is from 24 hours to 60 days.
Microbial - parasitic testing has a communication time of 48 hours to 30 days, only applied with positive results; hematology - blood transfusion from 24 hours to 7 days; biochemistry from 24 hours to 60 days.
Reduce tests and repeat scans when transferring hospitals
According to the Ministry of Health, the interconnection aims to prioritize the use of existing paraclinical results if they are still valuable and meet professional requirements, thereby limiting patients having to redo tests or X-rays when transferring to medical facilities.
This can help reduce waiting times, treatment costs and unnecessary interventions, especially with techniques such as CT, MRI.
However, not all results are automatically reused. Practitioners will base on the actual situation and professional requirements to decide to use the old results or indicate re-implementation.
The doctor decides whether to reuse the results or not
The draft sets the principle of patient safety and puts patients at the center. Results are only used when they are still valid, suitable for the clinical condition, implementation time, technical methods and characteristics of each service.
Practitioners are responsible for deciding to use the results of articulation or direct re-implementation.
Data quality and security requirements
Testing and scanning facilities must be licensed and allowed to perform corresponding techniques; and at the same time ensure the quality, accuracy, reliability and timeliness of the results.
The results must have complete identification information of the patient, sampling time, sampling person, implementation time and signatory.
Interconnection must also ensure connection, sharing and data security. Patient information and personal data must be protected according to regulations.
Medical examination and treatment facilities are responsible for exploiting and using interconnected results in accordance with the list and meeting professional requirements.
Since 2017, the Ministry of Health has had a list of tests applied for inter-connection and recognition of test results. With the new draft, this scope is proposed to be significantly expanded, from testing to both optical imaging services and image data.
