KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Health (KKM) aims to implement the digital transformation of healthcare at all health facilities nationwide within the next four to five years.
Its Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (pix) said the implementation of the transformation through the ‘one individual, one record’ strategy would begin with the use of the electronic medical record (EMR) at every health facility that is involved.
“The ministry is taking a new perspective in implementing this transformation, including creating a Digital Health Division responsible for drawing up holistic, future-ready and future-proof healthcare digitalisation plans.
“The approach to be taken will be based on the strategy of ‘Reform, Relook, Recalibrate dan Realise’, covering activities consolidating digital units in the ministry, reviewing all digital systems in the ministry, establishing new digitalisation strategies according to the latest technology trends and subsequently implementing and monitoring the planned implementation,“ he said during the question and answer session at the Dewan Rakyat today.
He said this in reply to a question from Datuk Adnan Abu Hassan (BN-Kuala Pilah), who wanted to know the latest development in the digital transformation of healthcare that will be implemented this year.
Dr Dzulkefly said that, in addition, the government will conduct a comprehensive mapping study of the country’s digital healthcare architecture and improve existing strategies to ensure faster implementation in providing more comprehensive and quality healthcare services to the people.
He said the KKM’s focus on digital healthcare transformation between government and private facilities is aimed at increasing accessibility, safety and efficiency in the delivery of healthcare services.
“The implementation of this initiative is crucial because it can ensure precision patient care, which has several features such as being low cost, and also allow the KKM to carry out big data analytics related to digital health,“ he said.
To an additional question from Adnan regarding KKM’s preparedness in using the EMR system, Dr Dzulkefly is confident the ministry has the capability and expertise since health digitalisation has already been introduced on a small scale at several hospitals and health clinics.
“Currently, only 20 per cent of hospitals are using the EMR, with only 236 clinics out of 3,876 clinics using it. So, we want to analyse, relocate and re-access its usage to deliver the national EMR in the fifth year of this government’s administration,” he said. –Bernama
