PUTRAJAYA: The Malaysian Health Data Warehouse (MyHDW) connects the public, private hospitals and clinics to share a variety of information and knowledge including a patient’’s medical records in a secured system, says Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam.
He said the trusted source of comprehensive healthcare system which was developed by the Health Ministry and Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems in 2015, would share analysis, data and research with healthcare facilities, together with the Higher Education Ministry (Universities Hospital) and Defence Ministry (Military Hospital).
Previously, he said, the collection of health data was done manually and had created a silo nature although there was technology advancement to record health data electronically.
“The use of ICT in silo was costly and complex as a patient’’s medical record could not be shared if there was a need to seek treatment at another hospital.
“Now, MyHDW will focus on detailed data collection for query and analysis purposes. It boasts a portal that enables access to a wide range of health data,” he told reporters after launching the MyHDW at his ministry here yesterday.
For example, Dr Subramaniam said, if someone wanted to know about percentage of diabetic or cancer patients in the country, they could access to the system.
“However, the system does not give access to irrelevant groups to access on specific or isolated information regarding a patient’s health data details. Such information can only be accessed by relevant people for research and analysis purposes,” he said.
The health minister said the MyHDW system, currently at phase one, had collected data from 2.5 million inpatients from all government and public hospitals, military hospitals and daycare unit services.
The phase two would continue to collect 70 million outpatient medical record data at other healthcare facilities such as health and specialist clinics.
“The summated information will include demography, clinical and procedural intervention, and presented in aggregated form which is accessible without time and location boundaries,” noted Dr Subramaniam.
He said MyHDW would leverage on Big Data and analytics to assist in making strategic business decision, improve business efficiency, drive revenue growth as well as create new and innovative business model based on evident based practices.
“If one hospital has successfully done cardiology procedures with cost efficiency, other hospitals can follow the same procedure in order to save cost and reduce wastage of unnecessary medical expenses,” he added. — Bernama