Goals and Program


Background

  • District and regional healthcare providers lack training and information resources and services.
  • Patients are routinely transferred from OSHs ("outside hospitals") to central hospitals without advance notice nor even any medical record. Patients, themselves, routinely bypass district and regional facilities, since they believe they'll get better care at central hospitals. This transport has high costs, both financial and morbidity.
  • RICE: Remote Interaction, Consultation, and Epidemiology
    1. EMR.
      1. Patient identification very difficult.
    2. Remote consultation/videoteleconferencing.
    3. Epidemiology.
      1. Involve the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
    4. Medical education.
  • Consultations conducted via smartphones and information resources and services provided via smartphones could prevent the unnecessary transfer of patients from district or regional hospitals to central hospitals. Physicians at central hospitals could consult with staff at district and regional hospitals, and staff at all levels could have access to core information resources and services.
  • Why smartphones?
    • Phones are ubiquitous in Asia, versus computers. They're inexpensive, and portable.
    • Phone networks are expanding, without investment from healthcare system.
    • Wired internet access is limited and expensive to expand.
  • Need to move from a hospital-focused system to a network-based system.

Goals

  1. General integration of information resources and services in healthcare and health education.
  2. Establish value of RICE concept (see above).
  3. Education/staff development.
  4. Secure sustainability. Go back to sponsors for additional support.
  5. Developing new hospital--get "information" involved at the start.

Issues

  • Applications in Vietnamese?
  • Connection to Medisoft?
  • Sustainability.
  • Essential to have support of government and party.

Project partners

  • DMS/organization and advocacy.
  • NPH and Thai Nguyen Central General Hospital/clients.
  • Corporate (Microsoft).
  • Publisher/content.

Education/presentations--a mix of in-country (i.e., me) and vtel (from Dartmouth)