KUALA LUMPUR: The digitalisation of the country's healthcare system will cost the government billions of ringgit, the Dewan Rakyat heard today.
Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said a massive allocation would be needed in achieving this as it would involve upgrading infrastructure and using data cloud.
"A building must be suitable for digitalisation. When some of the equipment are old and need upgrading or replacement, this will contribute to the huge budget.
"In moving forward, we need cooperation from the Finance Ministry in such matters," she said in reply to a supplementary question from Tan Hong Pin (Pakatan Harapan-Bakri).
Tan had earlier questioned the progress in the digitalisation of the healthcare system as he pointed out that there was no integration of data between different hospitals.
"I went to the Kluang Hospital and filled up a form and when I was transferred to the Johor Baru hospital later, I had to repeat the same process and the doctor there asked for the history of my illness.
"Why is the system not fully integrated and what are the limitations to achieve this? Each hospital still works in silo to this day," he said.
Earlier, Dr Zaliha said the ministry's Health Information System (HIS@KKM), a main component of work processes at hospitals and clinics, is being implemented in phases through approved projects under the Rolling Plan of Malaysia.
She said under the fourth rolling plan of the 11th Malaysia Plan, seven hospitals in Negri Sembilan were involved in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, while seven hospitals nationwide were included in HIS@KKM under the second rolling plan of the 12th Malaysia Plan.
"The digitalisation at primary healthcare started in 2005 with the Teleprimary Care (TPC) system and subsequently Teleprimary Care-Oral Health Clinical Information System (TPC-OHCIS) in 2017 at health and dental clinics.
"The system allows patients' treatment and registration, as well as medicine dispensary and medical records to be done electronically."
She said data from the system could be used in reports for the purpose of planning health programmes and providing data to mobile app for the purpose of life-long medical records.
This would allow patients' medical records to be shared among health clinics via TPC-OHCIS, she said.
To date, a total 103 health clinics have been equipped with TPC-OHCIS and 42 clinics in Negri Sembilan would have a similar system through the national EMR project, she said.
She said only 27.5 per cent of hospitals had utilised TPC system, while 9.5 per cent clinics and 4.4 per cent dental clinics have adopted the TPC-OHCIS.
Meanwhile, Dr Zaliha said 1,027 health clinics are using the online appointment system via MySejahtera, while 370 health clinics are offering virtual clinic services.
"The next plan is to expand all related systems as a whole to achieve the integrated healthcare information system.
"It is our aim to see patients have their medical records (in the system) and be able to retrieve their data when they go to any clinic."