HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam Social Insurance is among the State-owned agencies that utilise technology most effectively in data management, Minister and Chairman of the Office of the Government Mai Tiến Dũng said yesterday.

Dũng headed an inspection team as it visited Việt Nam Social Insurance (VSI) and its information technology operations centre in Hà Nội yesterday.

He passed on Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc’s compliments on VSI’s administrative reform efforts, including applying technology to build a national insurance database and supervise insurance payments.

Statistics show VSI’s information system has been utilised at major hospitals, as well as health centres in 63 provinces and cities and 709 districts across the country.

It helped reduce the insurance payment time of enterprises from 335 hours to 45 hours per year.

“The most important thing is that it creates transparency and clarity in management and is helpful to the people, and helps control the insurance payment process at medical facilities,” chairman Dũng said.

He said the Prime Minister highly appreciated VSI’s establishment of the national insurance database when a general population database was not even available in the country.

VSI had put great effort into inviting more people from different walks of life to join different types of insurance plans, he added.  

It increased the number of people paying social insurance from 13.9 million in 2017 to 14.3 million by the end of September this year, medical insurance from 79.9 million to 82 million, and unemployment insurance from 11.8 million to 12 million.

However, Dũng said VSI can still do better, since the 14.3 million people paying social insurance makes up only 27 per cent of the country’s working age population.  

It should also maximise its technological advantages and digitalise all insurance data to make it easier to share information about health facilities, he said.

Speaking at the meeting, Nguyễn Thị Minh, VSI’s director, said she appreciated the compliments and constructive criticisms from the Prime Minister and chairman Dũng.

“We have only completed 70-80 per cent of the reform process, and we sure need to do more,” she said.

“We feel very much pressured by the objective of getting 35 per cent of the working age population to join social insurance by 2021.”

The director suggested that the Government issue a decree on data sharing between State-owned agencies, with emphasis on the responsibility of different parties for the security of the shared data. — VNS