| The use of AI will vastly improve both patient safety and the hospital experience, Photo: Le Toan |
Hoan My Medical Corporation, the largest and most experienced private-run medical group in Viet Nam, was honoured at last week’s Hospital Management Asia 2019 event in the country with the Innovations in Healthcare Technology Project award. This award, for incident reporting and learning systems, partly illustrates the trend of technology investment among hospitals across the country.
According to Hoan My, medical incidents happen often and are the third killer, just behind cancer and heart attacks. “In high-income countries, one in 10 patients is harmed while receiving hospital care, while in low and middle-income countries, the adverse event rate sits around 8 per cent (83 per cent were preventable, and 30 per cent were associated with death of the patient),” said Le Thi Anh Thu, group chief medical officer of Hoan My. “Low reporting of incidents come from the Asian culture of reporting. Thus, we have developed the HM115 with a hope to create a digital platform to support the change in the reporting culture at hospitals, and thus possibly preventing regrettable incidents.”
Hoan My was one among hundreds of Vietnamese privately-run and state-run hospitals to attend the Hospital Management Asia 2019 to showcase technology application and learn experience from their partners amid wide influence of Industry 4.0 in enhancing patient satisfaction and improving outcomes.
Along this trend, the likes of FV Hospital, Vinmec Healthcare System, Hanh Phuc International Hospital, City International Hospital, and American International Hospital, among others, have also been heading towards healthcare digitalisation.
Established in 2014, City International Hospital is piloting the application of AI in diagnosis of common diseases, while planning to focus on telemedicine in the near future.
According to Siemens Healthineers, the healthcare industry is facing constant alterations. Digitalising the market and rapid technological progresses are accompanied by changing regulatory demands, cost pressures, and growing customer expectations. Highly promising technology is opening up previously unimagined opportunities, thanks to exponential growth in computing power, huge memory capacity, and growth in networking.
In addition to this, the trend is reinforced by the Vietnamese government’s policies towards promotion of technology in the healthcare sector. Last year, the Ministry of Health (MoH) marked an important milestone when it decided to pilot the AI application in cancer treatment at
National Cancer Hospital, Oncology Hospital Ho Chi Minh City, and Phu Tho General Hospital, by using AI from IBM Watson for Oncology.
Now, the important focuses of the Vietnamese healthcare industry continues to include IT application from Industry 4.0, together with finance, infrastructure, and public-private partnership development.
To this end, the MoH encourages hospitals to apply technology in their performance in order to increase efficiency.
“Together with the achievements made over recent years, Vietnam continues the reform of the healthcare system. And we want to learn from countries in the development of the healthcare sector and encourage private investment into this path,” said Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien.
Taking the same view, groups such as GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers, Abbott, Sodexo, Sunway Medical Centre, and E-Healthcare Viet Nam are seeking new opportunities via partnerships with hospitals. They are having discussions on the latest healthcare technology available and that already being used in the region; the use of AI and digitalisation in improving patient safety and outcomes; and debating what the future holds in terms of new technology.
Siemens Healthineers in particular is working on the creation of something the groups calls ‘value partnerships’, under which they not only provide equipment, but look at optimising operations today, expanding new capabilities tomorrow, and advancing the level of innovation. Similarly, Sodexo Vietnam, part of a global organisation spanning 72 countries, is looking to work with hospitals to deliver a full range of on-site integrated facilities management services deployed across corporations, healthcare, and education.
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