KUALA LUMPUR, March 26 — The Health Ministry (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 said the implementation via the ‘one individual, one record’ strategy will begin with the use of the electronic medical record (EMR) at every health facility.
“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.
Dr Dzulkefly was speaking during the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today in response to Kuala Pilah MP Datuk Adnan Abu Hassan’s query on the latest development in the digital transformation of healthcare, which will be implemented this year.
The government will additionally conduct a comprehensive mapping study of Malaysia’s digital healthcare architecture and improve existing strategies to ensure faster implementation in providing more comprehensive and quality healthcare services to the people.
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 like 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
