Electronic medical records, health financing reforms among Dr Dzul’s agenda

PUTRAJAYA: Electronic medical records (EMR), digitising healthcare, health financing reforms and upgrading dilapidated facilities are among Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad’s agenda as he returns to helm the health portfolio.

The Health Minister said in his first address at the ministry’s monthly assembly on Thursday (Dec 14), that there are many issues that have to be resolved such as the shortage of positions for healthcare workers, which he described as chronic and perennial. Apart from that he said the state of healthcare facilities, the healthcare infrastructure and the IT system are other matters that warrant attention.

“The EMR is my baby, which I have to revisit immediately,” he said, adding that digitising healthcare and health financing are his priorities.

“Seriously it is not just about IT and the Health Ministry’s Hospital Information System, it is our ambition to have one patient, one record and there is a seamless connection of all facilities,” he said.

“Eventually, we will allow a patient to only be asked a question once because the Patient Master Index will be accessible to any physicians or doctors attending to the patient because we have National Electronic Medical Records for the entire country,” he said.

“God willing, we hope to achieve this in the remaining four years (of the government’s tenure),” he said while urging Health Ministry officials for their support.

Dzulkefly said this will be conducted in phases but it must not take too long.

“Certainly not 10 years,” he added.

He said health financing reform is also pertinent, adding that there must be prudent spending.

“If we are going to simply tap from the consolidated fund, it will be a great burden on finance and widen the fiscal deficit. Hence, we have to be prudent and be smart enough to understand what is behind these problems,” he said.

“We have inefficient spending in terms of out of pocket expenditure to the tune of 32%. Those are very inefficient spending,” he said, adding that not much is being done to pool funding resources to finance healthcare.

“There are two keywords which are key to financing reforms, which are pooled and prepaid.

“It is important to understand the mechanics to pool funds to form a single (funding) system which will allow us to purchase services strategically for both private and public (healthcare),” the minister added.

However, he noted that this may not be an easy journey and will likely be complicated.

“I cannot promise that it can be implemented in the near future. It requires the buy-in from the top management of the Health Ministry,“ he added.

Dzulkefly also said there cannot be piecemeal solutions to the problem, adding that without solutions the ministry will be trapped in the same cycle.

He also said that the government has agreed to provide an additional RM30mil for the Madani Afiat initiative.

Dzulkefly served as Health Minister in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Pakatan Harapan Cabinet from 2018 to 2020.

In the unity government’s first cabinet reshuffle on Dec 12, the Kuala Selangor MP was named as Health Minister while Dr Zaliha was appointed as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories).