Vietnam moves to integrate routine health check-up data into national Electronic Records System

Vietnam’s Ministry of Health has convened a high-level meeting to advance plans for connecting routine health check-up data with the country’s national electronic health record system, as authorities seek to deliver on a government target of annual health screenings for every citizen.

The meeting, held on 10 March and chaired by Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Tri Thuc, heard that while electronic health records integrated within the VNeID national identity application have now been rolled out across all 34 provinces and cities — covering approximately 30 million citizens — significant gaps remain in the data.

According to the National Health Information Centre, records currently held on the platform are drawn predominantly from health insurance and hospital treatment data. Information from routine check-ups and screenings conducted at community health stations, workplaces, schools, and through mobile health units has yet to be systematically captured or linked to individual citizen profiles.

Officials presented two proposed technical options for connecting this additional data. Delegates indicated a preference for routing information through the existing Vietnam Social Security data infrastructure, citing its established technical capacity and the familiarity of healthcare facilities nationwide with the platform.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Tri Thuc underlined the strategic importance of the initiative, noting that primary healthcare — encompassing preventive medicine, routine check-ups, and community health management — requires a unified digital infrastructure to be effective. He acknowledged that localities are currently running a variety of health management programmes operating on disparate systems.

The Deputy Minister stated that, in line with directives from Party and State leadership, the government’s objective is for every Vietnamese citizen to receive at least one health check-up per year, with the resulting data updated directly to their VNeID health record. Achieving this, he said, would lay the groundwork for a comprehensive national medical data repository to support clinical care, policy planning, and the broader digitalisation of Vietnam’s health sector.