Telemedicine Centre for COVID-19 Outbreak Control makes debut

Luong Ngoc Khue, Director of the Health Ministry’s Department for Medical Examination and Treatment Management, introduces the centre’s operations (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – The Vietnam Telemedicine Centre for Outbreak
Control made debut at a ceremony in Hanoi on March 5 in the context that the
disease (COVID-19) is causing grave concern around the world. 

The centre is tasked with managing and operating resources
and professional activities to support health clinics in receiving,
quarantining, diagnosing and treating COVID-19 patients directly or online.

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Health Minister Nguyen
Thanh Long said that is well controlling the COVID-19, with no
fatalities and no infected health workers recorded so far.

However, it is necessary to anticipate possible situations of a large-scale outbreak with many serious cases, Long stated, adding that the
birth of the centre aims to provide professional support for lower-level
hospitals and health clinics, especially in far-flung areas.

Through the support of information technology, experts and
doctors at the central level can see patients as well as medical parameters and
conditions of patients and their health developments from respiration and electrocardiogram
so that they can make recommendations on mechanical ventilation and infusion
for lower-level colleagues.

One of the problems of the disease is that the longer of
time the caregiver comes into contact with the patient, the higher the infection rate is.
Therefore, the centre is expected to help reduce the contact between health
workers and patients, Long stated.

Director of the Health Ministry’s Department for Medical
Examination and Treatment Luong Ngoc Khue said that the application of
information technology in telemedicine will help improve the medical system’s
capacity of dealing with the disease.

In case a health clinic records a COVID-19 patient, the
telemedicine centre will provide professional support for the clinic to avoid
the unnecessary transfer of the patient to the upper-level hospital, Khue
added.

The telemedicine centre is able to connect with 23 key disease
prevention places and over 1,400 hospitals across Vietnam. It uses various smart medical solutions, including teleconferencing, electronic medical
records, and the cloud-based Picture Archiving and Communication System (Cloud
PACS).

On this occasion, the Department for Medical Examination and
Treatment released a set of documents to serve COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment./.