Ministry of Health requests urgent completion of electronic medical records by September 2025

This is a requirement of the Ministry of Health in the electronic medical record (EMR) implementation plan that has just been officially approved, after many years of not completing the goals set forth in Circular 46/2018/TT-BYT on EMR.

According to Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Tri Thuc, the implementation of electronic medical records (EMR) is a key and top priority task, so heads of agencies and units must take full responsibility for this work, prioritize resources, mobilize the participation of organizations, businesses and people, and resolutely implement, ensure quality and progress at all hospitals and institutes with beds nationwide, to be completed in September 2025, according to Directive 07/CT-TTg dated March 14, 2025 of the Prime Minister.

The implementation of electronic medical records must ensure substance, bring specific effectiveness, improve productivity and quality of medical examination and treatment, disease prevention, and bring practical benefits to people and medical facilities.

At the same time, ensure information security, network security and information confidentiality according to regulations.

To achieve the above goal, Deputy Minister Nguyen Tri Thuc requested the Department of Science, Technology and Training to preside over the revision and update of the circular guiding the implementation of electronic medical records (replacing Circular 46/2018/TT-BYT) in April 2025.

The Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management is responsible for completing the list of clinical terminology and the list of paraclinical indicators to apply in electronic medical records. The Ministry requires this task to be completed by April 2025.

The Ministry also assigned the Department of Traditional Medicine and Pharmacy Management to preside over the completion of a list of specialties and clinical terminology in the field of traditional medicine and pharmacy to apply in electronic medical records, to be completed by April 2025.

Regarding financial resources, the Ministry of Health said that it will structure the cost of applying information technology into the price of medical examination and treatment services. The Ministry of Health assigned this task to the Department of Planning and Finance and requested that it be completed by June 2025.

The Ministry of Health will also develop technical and economic norms for medical imaging diagnostic services on the RIS-PACS system in April 2025.

The Ministry of Health requests the Department of Health of provinces and cities; health departments of ministries and branches; and hospitals nationwide to have plans to deploy electronic medical records at their units and ensure the completion of the deployment of electronic medical records at all hospitals nationwide by September 2025 at the latest.

The Ministry of Health's nationwide EMR rollout plan will be crucial to speeding up this process.

According to the roadmap of Circular No. 46 regulating EMR documents, by the end of 2023, 135 grade 1 hospitals must successfully deploy EMR and encourage other medical facilities to deploy EMR.

But by the end of 2024, only 94 medical facilities nationwide announced that they had deployed EMR, not using paper medical records, including 32 grade 1 hospitals; 44 grade 2 hospitals; 4 clinics and 14 private hospitals. Thus, the implementation rate only reached 23.7% (32/135) of the target.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/bo-y-te-yeu-cau-gap-rut-hoan-thanh-ho-so-benh-an-dien-tu-trong-thang-92025-post870326.html