ĐIỆN BIÊN — An electronic health information system (eHIS) with the aims to help people living with HIV/AIDS get more benefits from social health insurance has been developed in the northern Điện Biên Province’s Tuần Giáo District Healthcare Centre.

The system-part of the Sustainable Management of HIV/AIDS Response and Transition to Technical Assistance project launched by the Vietnamese government and the United States Agency for International Development (USAIDS) is an integration of an HIV module and medical records of people with HIV/AIDS, according to project officials.

The HIV software module allows the district healthcare centre to easily track and request reimbursement for HIV patient examinations and services.

After three months of implementing the project, the district healthcare centre reported it had received more than VNĐ22.7 million (US$1,000) as reimbursement from the health insurance fund for HIV patient examinations.

The centre said it was managing 467 HIV patients through the eHIS, allowing doctors to make better decisions by providing easy access to medical records of patients such as clinic assessments, test results and treatment for both infections and HIV.

The software was expected to be fine-tuned and implemented across Điện Biên Province and the central Nghệ An Province, according to project official.

Trịnh Đức Long, director of the Tuần Giáo District Healthcare Centre, on Thursday said at a workshop on sharing experiences on social health insurance for HIV patients that local people living with HIV/AIDS were poor and faced many difficulties such as lack of transportation to travel long distances to healthcare centres for treatment or lack of health insurance. Social health insurance coverage of HIV services was their social security, he said.

The eHIS has greatly helped to revolutionise local healthcare service procedures, Long said.

“Healthcare providers such as us can now monitor patients better, request reimbursement from social health insurance, and process detailed patient reports with a single click. For patients, it means we have more time to care for them and can do so more quickly and effectively as making patient records are instantly accessible,” Long said.

Đỗ Thị Nhàn, director of the care and treatment department at the Việt Nam authority for HIV/AIDS control under the health ministry, said the project by USAIDS helped health centres use electronic health information systems for treatment and programme reporting.

This would help to ensure the sustainability of the HIV programme, given the upcoming funding cuts, and also strengthen their ability to evaluate the effectiveness and ongoing quality of treatment programmes, she said. — VNS