HÀ NÔI – Việt Nam Social Insurance (VSI) has agreed to share with the Ministry of Health (MoH) personal database of more than 24 million households.

The move which was confirmed at a signing ceremony held this week with representatives of the two sides, was aimed to improve the country’s heath insurance management as well as boost the entire national health care system.

The VSI agreed to hand over of 92 million personal records of such 24 million households to the MoH. The ministry will be responsible for managing, using and securing the database.

Phạm Lương Sơn, deputy director general of VSI, said the VSI was among six agencies assigned by the government to set up national databases.

The VSI has built the database over the past two years and it is nearly complete, Sơn said.

The VSI will also update it regularly to ensure it is reliable, helping implement social welfare polices more effectively.

Sharing the database will help health sector to boost their insurance operation, said the official.

The database will also act as a foundation for the VSI to provide a personal code for each citizen in the future, he added.

Each citizen needs the code through his/her whole life when dealing with all social insurance issues, particularly health insurance, according to Sơn.

The MoH will add database to the citizen health dossier system which can be used nationwide.

With the dossiers, the health sector and the insurance agency can monitor the health of each book holder throughout their life. The dossier will have personal information about the book holder, including their health status, their weight, height, sex, blood group and more.

The dossier will give health workers information on patient’s medical history, improving treatment and cutting costs on health checks and treatment.

This also helps ensure that each citizen will enjoy the best access to health care services at the grassroots level.

The database on households with health insurance is also an importance source for the VSI to work with the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to issue electronic social welfare cards which combine social insurance books and and health insurance cards, Sơn said.

Sơn said he hoped sharing the database would help the creation of other national databases on population, social security and others. -- VNS