The Youth Union of the Provincial General Hospital applies information technology and deploys electronic medical records to help people reduce administrative procedures when going to the hospital for examination and treatment.
Three pillars of the new era
Resolution 57-NQ/TW dated December 22, 2024 of the Politburo on breakthroughs in the development of Science and Technology (S&T), Innovation (I&T) and National Digital Transformation (NDT) (Resolution 57) has established a strategic step forward, making Vietnam one of the few countries in the world pioneering the connection and synchronous development of three key areas: S&T, I&T and NDT. These three areas are considered the three key pillars in the era of Vietnam's strong rise. In order to synchronously, promptly and effectively implement the above three strategic pillars, Thanh Hoa province issued Action Plan 266-KH/TU dated April 26, 2025 to specify the implementation of Resolution 57 of the Politburo (Resolution 266). This is an important document, demonstrating the province's high political determination in anticipating new development trends, creating a foundation to promote rapid and sustainable growth.
In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), science and technology, innovation and digital transformation are dialectically related and closely linked, promoting each other's development. The core content of each pillar can be identified as follows:
Science and Technology: The mission of science and technology is to research, explore and create new knowledge using modern and appropriate scientific methods.
Innovation: Focus on creatively applying achievements, technology, and knowledge of science and technology to improve efficiency, create new and sustainable added value, and directly serve socio-economic development.
Digital Transformation: Is the process of comprehensively transforming the way of operating, managing and producing through the application of digital technologies, especially the core technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Digital transformation first of all requires optimizing the process towards streamlining, efficiency, minimizing intermediaries; then converting to a digital environment through data digitization, process digitization and building digital infrastructure.
In the current digital age, digital transformation plays the role of both an environment and an effective tool to promote the development of science and technology and innovation. Nowadays, the development of science and technology and innovation cannot be separated from the digital environment; according to statistics, about 50% of the components of Industry 4.0 are digital technologies and the remaining technologies are also developed on the basis of digital technology [2]. In the context of innovation, the rate of digital innovation accounts for up to 80%. This affirms that, in order to effectively implement innovation, it is imperative to clearly understand and creatively apply digital technologies and the digital transformation process.
Visual illustration of the relationship between science and technology, innovation and digital transformation.
Thus, if digital transformation is not associated with innovation, it will only stop at digitizing traditional processes, reflecting the approach of the 3rd Industrial Revolution (that is, Informatization and application of Information Technology) - but not really entering the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution. On the contrary, when digital transformation is associated with innovation, it will strongly promote the achievements of modern digital technologies (such as artificial intelligence, big data, virtual reality, the Internet of Things, etc.). At that time, digital transformation will be truly effective, becoming a strategic driving force, promoting sustainable growth for the local and national socio-economics.
Solutions to develop the three pillars of science and technology, innovation, and digital transformation for Thanh Hoa
Firstly, innovation must be the focus and core element of Plan 266: Science and technology, innovation and digital transformation are considered the three pillars in Vietnam's development era, in which science and technology play the role of development foundation, innovation is the key driving force, and digital transformation plays the connecting role. Plan 266 clearly identifies 12 targets for science and technology, 16 targets for innovation, and 37 targets for digital transformation.
In particular, innovation is a breakthrough pillar, which has a decisive significance for the province's competitiveness and sustainable growth. Therefore, Thanh Hoa needs to put innovation at the center of the process of creating new values, demonstrating depth in creative activities. The province must master modern technologies and gradually create some core technologies, such as artificial intelligence in healthcare, transportation, education, and security. If it only stops at importing technology and implementing software projects according to orders, Thanh Hoa will find it difficult to become a modern province, developing based on knowledge and innovation.
Therefore, in the process of implementing Plan 266, we need to set higher requirements for the field of innovation, proposing results that are truly breakthroughs in terms of creative value. Some product orientations that can be considered are:
⦁ Promote outstanding growth (from 50-80%) for some key services such as digital tourism, e-commerce, traditional products,... thanks to the application of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, virtual reality (VR), etc.
⦁ Improve the performance of state agencies through the application of AI virtual assistants; aiming to streamline at least 30% of the payroll by 2030 through intelligent and efficient automation.
⦁ Innovation in applying biotechnology and blockchain to develop clean, high-yield agricultural products. By 2026, 90% of Thanh Hoa's agricultural products will have their origin clearly controlled through digital platforms, contributing to ensuring food safety for the people.
⦁ Research and create new low-cost, environmentally friendly material products such as unburnt bricks, artificial sand from industrial waste to completely replace scarce natural sand,...
Second, it is necessary to make full use of the mechanism of sharing, common use and development of digital platform ecosystems: To effectively promote infrastructure and digital resources serving science and technology, innovation and digital transformation, it is necessary to make full use of the mechanism of sharing, common use and resource integration. Many investment items such as laboratories, data centers, server systems, and IT infrastructure in Plan 266 can be completely deployed in a shared manner, avoiding waste and improving operational efficiency.
In particular, many departments and branches are currently developing digital transformation tasks, so it is necessary to approach the direction of building a digital platform architecture framework for the entire industry and the entire unit. On that basis, the units continue to develop, supplement and integrate digital services of the industry according to a specific roadmap. This approach will help optimize investment costs, while facilitating the integration of digital services on a common platform, helping to minimize the situation of investing in software and information systems in a discrete, overlapping, and unsynchronized manner.
Digital transformation at Hoa Sen Kindergarten (Trieu Son).
Third, science and technology – the foundation of development – needs to be placed in its rightful place: science and technology have the mission of creating new knowledge based on modern scientific research methods. The core of science and technology activities is basic research – a field that requires compliance with international standards on scientific publications, patents, and inventions in prestigious journals such as ISI/WoS or Scopus.
However, reality shows that this field has not received adequate attention and investment. Current public resources are mainly focused on science and technology topics and projects, while fundamental research has not received adequate investment. In order to develop science and technology as the foundation for the innovation pillar, it is necessary to develop a systematic, synchronous and breakthrough investment policy. Some specific orientations include:
⦁ Building an incentive mechanism and transparent environment: There should be a worthy reward/incentive mechanism for international publications, patents, and national and international scientific awards. It is necessary to make full use of the approach of the National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) to create a transparent and objective environment for scientists.
⦁ Establishing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Institute: This is a strategic step for Thanh Hoa to master core technologies in key areas such as healthcare, transportation, and smart tourism. Without a specialized research facility, it will be difficult to form the capacity to master and create core technologies. For Thanh Hoa province, an effective way is to build an AI Research Institute in a university with a streamlined and efficient organizational structure. In which, the research team is built from prestigious lecturers, experts, and scientists to optimize investment funding. At the same time, it is also necessary to innovate management thinking about science and technology, which is to be ready to accept risks in science and technology to maximize the potential capacity and creativity of the intellectual team in the province.
Fourth, digital government needs a flexible approach to complete on schedule: From July 1, 2025, the two-level local government model will come into operation (commune level from July 1, 2025 and provincial level from August 15, 2025). Therefore, the urgent requirement now is to complete the transformation of the digital government system, ensuring synchronous, smooth and effective operation. Priority areas include: online public services, electronic offices (paperless), document management and operation in the digital environment, and electronic identification application (VNeID).
Recent practice has shown that digital government brings many obvious benefits, helping people and businesses carry out administrative procedures conveniently at home, contributing to building a service-oriented administration, promoting development and startups.
To complete the goal on schedule, it is necessary to deploy flexible and effective solutions. In the digital transformation roadmap, the three key tasks include: digitizing processes, digitizing data and upgrading digital infrastructure. In which, digitizing processes and upgrading digital infrastructure need to be prioritized, while digitizing data can be carried out in stages because of the large amount of work. Because the public investment process may take a long time to implement, the optimal solution that can be applied now is to rent digital infrastructure from reputable technology corporations such as VNPT or Viettel. After completing public investment, all data will be backed up to the province's server center for long-term management. This method both ensures cost savings and meets progress requirements, ready to put the system into operation from July 1, 2025.
Fifth, digital transformation needs to identify a number of key areas for pioneering implementation: To implement effectively, it is necessary to focus on selecting key tasks that can create clear and widespread changes, thereby promoting the digital transformation process in other areas. Some key areas that need to be prioritized include: digital tourism, digital healthcare, smart transportation, and smart agriculture.
Developing digital tourism and smart tourism: With the advantage of rich tourism resources, Thanh Hoa has a great opportunity to make a breakthrough if it effectively applies digital transformation and innovation. In particular, it is necessary to promote digital solutions to attract international visitors, contributing to the province's digital economic growth. Some key tasks include:
⦁ Updating data on national and international digital tourism platforms: Currently, data on the tourism industry in Thanh Hoa is quite modest on online digital tourism platforms in Vietnam and the world (such as VnTrip, Agoda.com, Trip.com, Booking.com, Airbnb, ...). Therefore, tourists have many difficulties in finding information about rooms, price policies and promotions, service quality. Meanwhile, many localities developing tourism such as Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Da Nang have a complete, detailed data system that is regularly updated on these platforms. Therefore, to promote the development of Thanh Hoa tourism, it is necessary to have regulations requiring tourism service businesses to coordinate with the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism to organize the updating of data on the above digital platforms, in order to improve accessibility, promotion and attract tourists.
⦁ Applying digital technology for digital promotion and communication: Applying modern digital technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR, AR, ...) to build virtual tourism models, smart tourism of famous landscapes and tourist destinations of Thanh Hoa. In particular, these smart tourism models need to support many different languages (English, Chinese, ...) to attract international visitors. Integrating tourism information, digital tourism models of Thanh Hoa onto a common, unified digital platform, avoiding the current situation of fragmented information.
⦁ Prioritize the development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in automatic monitoring at tourist facilities to build a friendly and civilized tourism environment. The AI system will support raising awareness of environmental protection, monitoring information on prices, service quality and promptly receiving and handling visitors' feedback, thereby contributing to improving the experience and satisfaction of visitors when coming to Thanh Hoa.
Developing digital healthcare: Thanh Hoa is the third most populous province in the country. For many years, the healthcare system has been overloaded, causing many difficulties for the people. Therefore, it is necessary to prioritize building a smart digital healthcare ecosystem with the following key tasks:
⦁ Digital hospital and electronic medical records: Deploying digital hospital system and electronic medical records to improve management efficiency, support remote medical examination, appointment scheduling and home examination.
⦁ Digital doctor, digital diagnostic expert: Applying artificial intelligence (AI) to build in-depth diagnostic models, helping to analyze medical images (X-ray, CT, MRI...) quickly and accurately, supporting doctors to improve treatment quality.
⦁ Digital patient: Develop electronic health records, digital medical records, health cards and digital insurance to manage health information seamlessly and conveniently.
⦁ Online pharmacy: Build a digital drug supply system, support ordering, treatment instructions, and track drug usage history.
Delegates attending the Workshop "Accelerating digital transformation in healthcare - technology and solutions for electronic medical records in private healthcare facilities" organized by the Vietnam Private Hospital Association.
Investing in digital healthcare development brings clear benefits: people have access to modern, high-quality healthcare services right at their local area, reducing pressure on hospitals, saving costs and time, and significantly improving the experience of medical examination and treatment.
Developing smart traffic: Strongly applying digital technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI), to build a smart traffic system. Specifically, the province has enough resources to develop smart and automatic traffic monitoring technologies and solutions such as: license plate recognition, facial recognition, detecting traffic violations via cameras, monitoring vehicles entering and exiting key agencies and areas. At the same time, integrating data from the camera surveillance system into the smart urban operations center for timely management, analysis and decision making. Promoting the application of biometric technology at key airports and border gates to improve management efficiency, ensure security, shorten procedure time, and create favorable conditions for people and tourists during entry and exit. These solutions contribute to raising awareness, compliance with traffic laws, minimizing accidents and increasing transparency in handling administrative violations.
Developing smart agriculture: Promoting the application of digital technology, biotechnology, automation and big data in agricultural production to increase productivity, quality and ensure food safety. Focus on deploying smart farming systems, remote monitoring by sensors, weather forecasting, nutrition and disease monitoring of crops and livestock.
In particular, it is necessary to apply blockchain technology to trace the origin of products, creating trust for domestic and foreign consumers. Thanh Hoa can set a goal that by 2026, at least 90% of key agricultural products will have their origin strictly controlled and can be transparently looked up on mobile devices. This is an important step to build the Thanh Hoa agricultural product brand in the national and international markets.
Conclude
A strong country cannot have a weak science and technology - this has been clearly demonstrated through the development process of humanity [3]. In the context of the digital age, science and technology and innovation must be developed simultaneously on the basis of digital technology. Knowledge economy, including digital economy and green economy, will be the development trend in the new era of humanity. Correctly identifying and approaching these three pillars will help each country and locality develop sustainably, effectively and have long-term competitiveness.
Thanh Hoa Province has identified and specified these three pillars in the Action Program to implement Resolution 57. To realize the goal of becoming a new growth pole, it is important to correctly identify the role of each pillar and choose a breakthrough approach. In particular, innovation needs to be placed in the center, creating the foundation for building a new productive force - modern, efficient and highly replaceable. AI virtual assistants, smart diagnostic technology, AI in education and management... will gradually replace manual labor, improving productivity and service quality.
To do that, the province must master technology, gradually innovate core technology, and form a pioneering research force. Establishing a specialized research institute, while having a mechanism for recruiting talents, will be a strategic and long-term step. At the same time, it is necessary to soon build appropriate mechanisms, policies and legal corridors, creating a favorable environment for the three pillars of science and technology, innovation and digital transformation to develop strongly, making practical contributions to Thanh Hoa's breakthrough in the coming period.
Assoc.Prof., Dr. Pham The Anh
Head of Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Communication - Hong Duc University
References [1] https://xaydungchinhsach.chinhphu.vn/toan-van-nghi-quyet-ve-dot-pha-phat-trien-khoa-hoc-cong-nghe-doi-moi-sang-tao-va-chuyen-doi-so-quoc-gia-119241224180048642.htm
[2 https://vjst.vn/vn/tin-tuc/18301/ket-noi-khoa-hoc-cong-nghe--doi-moi-sang-tao-va-chuyen-doi-so--dinh-huong-phat-trien-ben-vung-dung-xu-the-thoi-dai.aspx
[3] https://laodong.vn/thoi-su/khong-the-tro-thanh-quoc-gia-hung-cuong-voi-nen-khoa-hoc-cong-nghe-yeu-kem-1514613.ldo
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