Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry ofHealth (MoH) is drafting a circular on a pilot programme for electronic medicalrecords in a bid to save time and money for both doctors and patients.

The draft circular is expected to be issued thisyear and take effect at the beginning of next year.

The draft is now available on the governmentportal and Ministry of Health’s websites at chinhphu.vn and moh.gov.vn,where the Ministry is seeking to collect public opinion.

The electronic medical records (EMR) system hasbeen piloted at several hospitals including the National Children’s Hospitaland the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Ha TinhGeneral Hospital. It would be applied at all health care facilities acrossthe country by 2020.

Under the draft circular, the electronic medicalrecords (EMR) are a digitalised version of the old paper records and they havethe same function as described in the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment.

Each citizen has an electronic medical recordwhich will be monitored and stored for a lifetime.

A doctor who wished to be anonymous said theimplementation of the EMR system will bring about a lot of advantages. Thesystem helps improve diagnosis and treatment, he told Lao dong (Labour)newspaper.

Electronic medical health records andinformation sharing within a medical practice naturally reduce handwritingerrors, he said, adding that the bad handwriting of many doctors is causingtrouble for people who wanted to read records.

He also said that the problem of lost ormisplaced patient files will also be eliminated with the introduction of thenew system.

The draft circular stipulated that the EMRsshould meet a number of requests, including compliance with regulations of theMinistry of Health and Ministry of Information and Communications.

The EMR system must control users’ access toparticular patient information while ensuring the patients’ privacy, it said.

In accordance with the draft circular, thepersonal health records will be set up based on codes issued by Vietnam SocialSecurity.

It is necessary to adopt preventive measures tostop illegal access to electronic medical records and recover them in caseerrors occur.

While some believe that the application of theEMR system will help produce a marked increase in the health and welfare ofpatients, others are still concerned about the privacy of patients and theirmedical records.

Nguyen Danh Hue from the Hanoi Bar Associationtold the newspaper that protecting the privacy of patients was theresponsibility of hospitals.

Thus, he said, hospitals should take measures toensure that patients’ information was preserved.

“As we are entering the fourth industrialrevolution, people have less privacy and fewer secrets. It happens not only in Vietnam butin other countries as well,” he said.

Because an individual’s phone number is recordedin many places and at many moments, it is very difficult to track down when thepersonal information was revealed, if it is used inappropriately.

Hue urged state agencies to avoid copyinginformation as the protection of information depends on humans, no matter whatthe information collection and storage process entails.

“It is not easy to prevent hackers but we couldput an end to information leaking by taking sound measures,” he said.-VNS/VNA