(BGO) - Realizing the province’s plan, at this time, localities in Bac Giang province are urgently setting up electronic health records of the local residents. This is an important task to ensure that all people are managed, monitored and provided with primary health care at medical facilities.
Urgently implementing the plan
Bac Giang is one of the provinces to implement electronic health records the earliest in the country (since 2017). Now the province has more than 480,400 people with electronic health records, concentrating in Yen The and Yen Dung districts.
Doctors and nurses provide health checkups for students of the Minh Duc Primary School (Viet Yen district) to set up electronic health records. |
The data of the records has been connected with the health examination software from the commune to the province. In order to achieve the goal of 90 percent of the population in the province having electronic health records in 2019, at this time, the districts and Bac Giang city are urgently implementing their plans.
Viet Yen district has about 185,000 people living in 19 communes and townships. Preparing for the establishment of electronic health records, the district has organized training sessions on surveying skills and data entry for village and school medical staff.
Recently, from May 22 to June 3, the district Health Center organized the first examination for students. At the Minh Duc Primary School, there were six examination tables and 20 specialist doctors from the district Health Center and the medical stations of neighboring communes who provided comprehensive health checkups for students. The whole commune has nearly 3,000 children of primary school age, the most in the district, so the medical checkups were conducted in two days.
Statistics from the district Health Center shows that up to now, nearly 35,000 students have undergone general health examination. Currently, officials of commune and township health stations and schools’ health workers are cooperating with Viettel’s Bac Giang branch to complete data entry and provide patients with an identification number.
Pharmacist Nguyen Kim Anh, Deputy Director of the district Health Center said because of limited human resources, there are four health examinations with each targeting a specific group.
In addition to the group of primary school students who have completed the examination, starting from July, medical checkups will cover the group of people from 60 years old and retirees; and then the group of children under 6 years old who do not go to school, officials and civil servants.
The final is the group of university and college students and preschool, secondary school and high school pupils. The district strives to complete the establishment of electronic health records before September 30.
As a district with a large population of more than 243,000, Hiep Hoa district is urgently completing the establishment of electronic health records under the plan. The district plans to organize pilot health examinations in the two communes of Hop Thinh and Dong Tan at the end of June 2019, which will then be replicated throughout the district.
Overcoming difficulties, ensuring progress
According to Nguyen Dinh Toan, deputy head of the Health Care Department (the provincial Department of Health), electronic health record is an important solution to support management, strategy making and implementation of health intervention activities.
Each citizen will be given a personal health record with an identification code that is updated on the national management system. Physicians only need to access the system to grasp the patient's information, which facilitates diagnosis and treatment.
However, during the implementation process, there were many difficulties such as lack of human resources for simultaneous deployment; some local Party committees and authorities showing their unenthusiastic engagement; limited budget...
Experience from Yen The district is to organize health examination for workers, employees and workers on weekends and holidays to attract participants. For people with serious illnesses or too young babies (less than one month), the communes have sent health workers to their houses to offer checkups and make records.
The districts of Lang Giang and Hiep Hoa have mobilized personnel of military units, enterprises and private health clinics based there to participate in the universal health examination.
Meanwhile, in Son Dong district, the communes have often disseminated the content of setting up electronic health records for the people to understand, thereby actively coordinating to provide information to the enumerators.
In order to fulfill the 2019 plan, the provincial Department of Health recently had a meeting with the People's Committees of districts and Bac Giang city, focusing on the implementation of electronic health records. The department requested local leaders to pay attention to this job, considering it a central task of their units and mobilizing all forces to join in.
Khoi Nguyen