In the first half of 2020, the Ministry of Health (MoH) processed administrative procedures online at a rate 2.5 times higher than five years ago.
The information was announced at an event marking the completion of the online public service at level-4, which is the highest level in Vietnam’s online public service system.
The event was held under the authority of the ministry. The Deputy Prime Minister, Vu Duc Dam, praised MoH’s efforts and said that it is necessary to further promote the system to make it more convenient.
The process must be replicated across all ministries and agencies to deploy online public services soon fully at level-4.
From January, the total number of records processed online reached 33,429.
In only the first six months of this year, under the direct guidance of Deputy PM Dam, MoH has accelerated and made breakthroughs in realising the dual objective of fighting COVID-19 whilst carrying out digital transformation in the healthcare sector.
Due to these efforts, the ministry has reached the target for providing online public services five years earlier than the initial schedule.
According to a media report, since 2014, MoH has been one of the pioneers in the implementation of level-4 online public services in the field of food safety with the certification issuance for the content of advertising food products.
MoH is also one of the first ministries to implement the National Single Window in 2015.
By the end of 2019, after five years of implementation, the ministry had put into operation 90 online public services at levels 3 and 4 in various fields.
These included food safety and nutrition, medicine, cosmetics, medical equipment and facilities, training, conducting scientific and IT research, medical examination and treatment, and preventive medicine, with about 400 records received a day.
In November 2019, MoH’s Public Service Portal was officially opened, which is the only online portal focusing on all public health services by the ministry, creating more favourable conditions for people and businesses to carry out public services with the ministry while strengthening its management of service delivery units.
The portal has been successfully integrated into the National Public Service Portal, National One-Stop Portal, and other local public service systems to form a thorough platform to support citizens and businesses.
To date, MoH has completed providing level-4 public health services on 100% of administrative procedures under its management, which have been connected to the ministry’s Public Health Service Portal.
Other government services are being provided through the National Public Service Portal. It offers 395 online public services.
These include 232 dedicated to businesses, with some groups seeing a large frequency of implementation and effective services, such as registering/announcing promotion, applying for certificates of origin of goods, paying fines regarding administrative violations in the field of transport, and procedures related to insurance and tax.
The portal also helps businesses time and costs as administrative procedures of all ministries, sectors and localities can be performed therein.
It is expected that the total social cost saved when implementing online public services is about nearly VN ₫6.5 trillion (about US $278 million) each year, of which, the portal alone contributes over VN ₫3 trillion (about US $128 million).
