US$400 mil. for digital hospital
By Hien Nguyen - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – Saigon Institute of Technology, or SaigonTech, announced on Monday it would break ground in May for a digital hospital worth around US$400 million in Vung Tau City, which will be the first clinic of its type in the country.
Head of the institute Nguyen Van Sau told the Daily on the phone that “the digital hospital is a new definition in Vietnam but it is normal in developed countries.” The hospital will operate on the comprehensive information and communication platform, he said.
The hospital will apply information and communication technology (ICT) in operation and management. Doctors will be equipped with state-of-the-art ICT equipment and devices in treatment, and use two-way video to discuss patients’ conditions, while patients can use plasma TVs in their rooms to surf the Internet for information about their medical conditions.
“We will invest US$400 million to construct the hospital in Vung Tau City. The hospital will have up to 500 inpatient beds and 22 medical departments which focus on cardiology, tumor and mental illnesses,” he said.
According to Sau, his institute has mapped out the project to build the modern hospital since 2002 and has received encouragement from the ministries of Health, and Information and Communications as well as Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.
The province has allocated four hectares of land for the project and the institute has completed necessary formalities for construction in May this year, he added.
Construction on the project is to be completed by 2013. After this first digital hospital, SaigonTech will build other clinics in the northern and central regions, and these clinics will get connected with the Vung Tau-based hospital via telemedicine and geographic medicine services.
SaigonTech was established in 2001 with a mission to provide ICT education and training and engineering services, and conduct research and development in the ICT industry. Now, the institute is expanding its operation scopes by developing IT solutions for health care, automatic and environment management areas.