Digitisation of the is important to better serve patients, but hacking by cybercriminals is a grave risk, and great efforts are needed to keep patient information secure (Photo: VNA)HCM City (VNS/VNA) – The development
of technologies such as 4G, 5G, internet of things and artificial intelligence
has rapidly changed the healthcare sector’s landscape globally, including in Vietnam,
with more organisations adopting digitisation, according to experts.
The goal is to have multiple affiliated organisations sharing
patients’ to provide more holistic health care.
Many health care institutions are also using smart equipment
to carry out conventional tasks. For example, various devices measuring vital signs
today are directly connected to the hospital’s systems. Once measurements are
taken, the data is incorporated directly in the patient’s medical records
without the need for manual intervention.
New technologies have enabled the health care industry to carry
out remote operations. For instance, earlier this year, a surgeon in China
successfully carried out an operation remotely.
Digitisation across the health care industry has helped
service providers improve the quality of care and accelerate medical breakthroughs
for better patient outcomes and mitigate the rising cost of health care.
The Vietnamese Government is also supporting the
digitalisation of healthcare, launching projects to encourage and enable
digital health solutions to be adopted around the country.
According to the Ministry of Health, all health care
establishments will complete digitisation of medical records by 2030.
According to the Australian Trade and Investment Commission
(Austrade) in Vietnam, Vietnam’s economic growth, health-conscious population
and fast-developing 4G and 5G infrastructure provide the perfect environment
for .
There is strong interest in telemedicine and advanced
technologies and systems that can improve decision making, improve operational
efficiency and enhance patient care and experience, it said.
Yeo Siang Tiong, general manager of Kaspersky Lab Southeast
Asia, said most hospitals were in the first stage of digital transformation,
digitising simple data such as patient records, personal information, past
diagnosis, and medicine.
But the
digitisation of the healthcare industry had led to a massive increase in the
number of targeted attacks against the sector, he said.
“The health care
sector tracks a person’s medical history, personal information, sometimes they
also track who their parents are, and genetic conditions that pass down from
parents to child.
“Some of this information is actually worth more than a bank
card.”
In addition,
“the sector is less protected than sectors such as banking and finance,”
he said.
In the health care
industry, cyber security should not be taken slightly because any issue could
be a matter of “life and death,” he warned.
“What would happen when you need to treat a patient in an
emergency room, but the information is suddenly not available. It is a life and
death situation. It is actually very dangerous.”
At a recent conference on cybersecurity in the health care
sector, experts said the consequences of a breach could be quite detrimental
since health care records are highly personal and sensitive in nature.
If patients’
records were stolen, their private data could be traded on the dark web to be
exploited by cybercriminals for scams and frauds, and worse still it could
cause tremendous trauma to the patients, they said.
Yeo said to protect the healthcare industry from cybercrimes,
it was very important to “raise security awareness not just among IT workers
but also users of the equipment, doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers.”
“A lot of
hospitals do not have chief security information officers,” he said,
suggesting that they should focus on developing human resources to ensure cyber
security, he said.
The health care sector is a critical one, and
therefore hospitals, public and private, should start drafting regulations to
address the rising threats, according to Yeo./.
Source: VietnamPlus
