Upgraded electronic system for TB information management launched

At the launching ceremony (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – The and the
US Agency for International Development (USAID) on November 30 launched the upgraded
Vietnam Tuberculosis (TB) information management electronic system (Vitimes).

According to Dr. Dinh Van Luong, Director of the Central
Lung Hospital, the Vitimes, which was developed by the National TB Programme in
2010, has been run in the 63 cities and provinces nationwide as well as more than
900 medical facilities at the district level.

Its main function is to manage important reports and data of
the National TB Programme, serving monitoring, supervision, scientific research,
planning, and decision making.

However, the data on Vitimes is mainly about susceptible TB
with a shortage of components on , latent TB, contact
management as well as a lack of connection and data exchange with other systems
such as those of the Vietnam Social Security, hospital management software
(HIS), electronic information system of the HIV Programme or test data
management software of the National TB Programme, said Luong.

Since 2019, the USAID has worked with the National TB Programme to support the Vietnamese Government
to detect, treat and detect, report people with undetected TB in the community,
with the upgrading of the to supervise the National TB Programme in a
comprehensive manner.

The upgraded Vitimes is a comprehensive electronic information system on TB,
fully integrated with subsystems, including data modules, detection management,
treatment of susceptible TB, drug-resistant TB and latent TB.

The upgrading of the system helps the National TB Programme standardise
the management and monitoring system, making it ready to exchange data with
many other systems at present and in the future, facilitating the management,
provision and analysis of data, thus ensuring that decisions are made in a more
timely and accurate way.

USAID’s Mission Director for Vietnam Aler Grubbs said that
in the future, the agency and the National TB Programme will continue to team
up to ensure that all levels in the TB prevention and control system from the
central level to provinces, districts and communes have sufficient capacity to
reach vulnerable community groups and provide high-quality healthcare services
to the needy.

This is also USAID’s commitment to support Vietnam in
maintaining TB control, aiming to reduce the TB incidence rate by 90% and the
TB fatality rate by 95% compared to 2015, ensuring that no households have to bear
the costs of disasters caused by TB, moving towards the goal of ending TB by
2035./.