Izah Azahari
The Ministry of Health is hoping that its digitalisation efforts will help to improve national health literacy, Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar said during the Health Ministerial Panel at the 2nd ASEAN Digital Public Health Conference at The Empire Brunei yesterday.
The minister said health literacy is still quite low in the country, and it is hoped that digitisation of public health information will help to “nudge” the public to take better care of their health.
One example is the use of electronic wearables in a diabetes control programme, that will remind individuals of their healthcare requirements, and thus help to prevent organ damage from patient negligence.
Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham said the pandemic has leap-frogged digital transformation in most countries.
In Brunei, the digitalisation of medical records began in 2012 under the Bru-HIMS project, said the minister. “With this experience, and the occurrence of the pandemic, when the government embarked into the digitisation of public healthcare, people understood what it entailed.”
The minister said with more than 10 years of data from Bru-HIMS in hand, along with the use of artifical intelligence, the government has a better understanding of future needs in public healthcare.
“We have plans to go beyond infectious diseases and move towards precision-driven public healthcare,” said the minister, adding that the ministry needs to be prepared for diseases 10-20 years in the future.
Yesterday, at the panel themed ‘Building a Resilient ASEAN’, health ministers in the region explored ways to strengthen major areas, including key priorities to better respond to future public health emergencies.
