Digital health technology adoption in five Vietnamese hospitals: a self-report assessment (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Digital health technologies (DHTs) have been recognized as a key solution to help countries, especially those at the low- and middle-income group, to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the World Health Organization’s Triple Billion Targets. In hospital settings, DHTs need to be designed and implemented taking into account the local context to achieve usability and sustainability. As projects such as the Vietnam ICU Translational Applications Laboratory are seeking to integrate new digital technologies in the Vietnamese critical care settings, it is important to understand the current status of DHT implementation in Vietnamese hospitals. OBJECTIVE We aimed to explore the current digital maturity in Vietnamese public hospitals to understand their readiness in implementing new DHTs. An overview of DHT adoption in five Vietnamese hospitals were conducted, using the Vietnam Health Information Technology (HIT) Maturity Model. METHODS We assessed the adoption of some key DHTs and infrastructure in five top-tier public hospitals in Vietnam, using a questionnaire adapted from the Vietnam HIT Maturity Model. The questionnaires were answered by the heads of the hospitals’ Information Technology departments with follow-up for clarifications and verifications on some answers. Descriptive statistics demonstrated on radar graphs and tile graphs were used to visualize the data collected. RESULTS Hospital information systems (HIS), laboratory information systems (LIS), and radiology information systems - picture archiving and communication systems (RIS-PACS) were implemented in all the five hospitals despite with varied maturity across the hospitals. Two hospitals were not using any electronic medical record system nor fulfilling any extra digital capability such as implementing clinical data repositories and clinical decision support systems (CDSSs). No hospital reported sharing clinical data with other organizations using Health Level Seven (HL7) standards such as Continuity of Care Document and Clinical Document Architecture although two reported their systems adopted these standards. Almost all hospitals reported their RIS-PACS adopted Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard. CONCLUSIONS The major public hospitals attended in this assessment showed relatively high levels of digital maturity that aligns with national frameworks and policies. It is promising that these hospitals will be able to implement artificial intelligence -enabled CDSSs that leverage a wide range of data generated from systems such as HIS, LIS, RIS-PACS and, in some cases, EMRs. The widespread adoption of international standards such as HL7 and DICOM suggests DHTs developed in Vietnam could be implemented in other countries.