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Experts in the healthcare field commented that AI implementation will bring about more breakthroughs in disease diagnosis and treatment as well as hospital management.
For instance, the project ‘Electronic Medical Records with AI Aid’ by Prof. Dr. Ho Tu Bao – Director of the Data Science Lab under the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (VIASM) – is quite promising. The project was carried out in Vietnam National University-HCM during the 2016-2021 period and was launched in hospitals in 2019.
The project focuses on the implementation of AI to develop suitable tools for data collection and retrieval in order to make better use of patients’ medical records. This technology is also exploited to analyze medical data, process clinical documents, and convert e-medical records into general data under the digital and text formats. These are expected to help doctors in managing and caring for their patients.
“Electronic medical records are a resource for disease diagnosis and treatment. AI is the core element in developing basic tools to exploit all functions of e-medical records. My project aims at using AI to build the medical digital infrastructure where all citizens are able to manage their own medical record as a personal asset. In addition, sharing these records among hospitals creates a useful national medical database, greatly contributing to the success of the digital transformation process in the healthcare field”, said Prof. Dr. Bao.
There are now about 13,000 medical facilities for disease diagnosis and treatment, including 135 level-one hospitals. Therefore, to offer better medical services to the community, since 2019, the Ministry of Health has been promoting smart healthcare, where electronic medical records have been a necessity since March 2019.
In the 2024-2028 period, all disease diagnosis and treatment facilities nationwide have to implement e-medical records – the digital version of a normal medical record. This new version is recorded, displayed and stored electronically. All e-medical records have the same legal basis and functions as their paper version, as stipulated in the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment.
However, at present, only 37/135 hospitals are using this electronic medical record model, accounting for 20 percent of the set target by the Health Ministry.
