Benefits seen
Every day, the A9 Emergency Center of Bach Mai Hospital receives hundreds of serious emergency cases. With such a workload, using electronic medical records helps reduce pressure on doctors.
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Director of A9 Emergency Center, Bach Mai Hospital - said: "The application of digital transformation, electronic medical records, and administrative procedures does not take much time, doctors can quickly examine. All indications are made on software.
After the order is completed, the relevant departments receive the information, the patient only needs to move to the designated locations to be deployed. The results returned to A9 are also very fast, even before the patient returns to the clinic. The implementation of electronic medical records is truly a breakthrough in the medical industry, partly reducing the workload for medical staff."
Taking care of a family member receiving inpatient treatment at the A9 Emergency Center, Bach Mai Hospital, Mr. Ngo Van Minh (Quang Ninh) shared about his experience with electronic medical records: "I can confirm and view all procedures, indications, treatment regimens, and prescriptions on my tablet or personal phone. After performing the procedures, when I return to the clinic, the doctors can read the results on the machine, minimizing movement and loss of documents."
Associate Professor, Dr. Dao Xuan Co - Director of Bach Mai Hospital - said: Through the pilot implementation in July 2024 with 6 centers and departments across the system, the hospital realized that implementing electronic medical records to replace paper medical records brings many benefits to patients and medical staff.
At Hanoi Medical University Hospital, Associate Professor, Dr. Dao Xuan Thanh - Deputy Director of the Hospital - said: Digital transformation of healthcare helps people easily access medical support anytime, anywhere; helps medical staff increase work efficiency, support better diagnosis and treatment, especially minimizing errors.
In management, digital transformation improves management efficiency, builds a national health data source, serves policy making, and scientific research. Deploying electronic medical records and electronic medical records has increased work efficiency, treatment efficiency, and management efficiency; helping doctors update patient status anytime, anywhere. Patients can monitor their own medical examination and treatment information. In particular, it reduces waiting time, reduces medical errors, and saves costs and resources.
Many places are still slow in implementing electronic medical records.
According to the roadmap stipulated in Circular No. 46/2018 on Regulations on electronic medical records, by the end of 2023, 135 grade 1 hospitals must successfully implement electronic medical records and encourage other medical examination and treatment facilities to implement electronic medical records.
However, statistics from the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association currently show that only 94 medical examination and treatment facilities have announced that they have implemented electronic medical records, not using paper medical records, reaching a rate of over 20%, including 32 grade 1 hospitals; 44 grade 2 and 3 hospitals; 4 clinics and 14 private hospitals.
Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Quy Tuong - Chairman of the Medical Informatics Association - assessed that the implementation of Circular 46 still has many shortcomings and difficulties, leading to the slow implementation of electronic medical records at medical facilities. In fact, some provinces have implemented electronic medical records very well, such as Phu Tho, Quang Ninh...
According to Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Quy Tuong, there are many reasons such as many hospital directors are not resolute, still waiting for the direction of the superior management agency. Implementing electronic medical records changes habits, so this change is also an obstacle for some medical staff, especially older staff.
In particular, in our country, more than 80% of hospitals are public, using the State budget to operate, and if the budget is used, there must be financial mechanism guidance, but we do not have a financial mechanism for the application of information technology in healthcare in general and the implementation of electronic medical records in particular. Hospitals do not control the software, are completely dependent on businesses and cannot edit the software themselves. Businesses manage the hospital's database, making it easy for data to be copied and causing patient information to be leaked.
