KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry plans to include childhood immunisation records into the MySejahtera application as part of its efforts to digitalise the healthcare industry.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the plan was to expand the usage of the application, which has 30 million downloads, post-Covid-19 by digitalising existing records and managing non-communicable diseases (NCD).
"Among our plans is to ensure current (data) we have can be digitalised, for instance, childhood vaccination records. Now we have the digital vaccination certificate in MySejahtera.
"So why don't we move all the childhood immunisation records onto the app? Easy, so you capture a whole new generation," he said at the AsiaTech Summit 2022 (ATxSummit) Panel Session: Rethinking Healthcare within A Digital Landscape in Singapore today.
Khairy explained that the MySejahtera application can be used to assist the government to address NCD, which are expected to become one of the country's main healthcare issues in the next 10 years.
He said the application could be part of the National Health Screening Initiative set to be launched next month.
"One of the biggest challenges for health ministries around the world over the last two years is that many individuals did not attend any health screenings or annual health check-ups.
"So how you start encouraging people to book their appointments is to make sure they can record very 'light' medical data on the application and carry that with them to appointments.
Khairy, however, said trust from the public is important when rolling out plans involving digitalisation and public records.
He said the pandemic and lockdown in the country saw a high usage of the MySejahtera application, which at its peak recorded 38 million check-ins and 600,000 home assessment forms filled out in a day.
"Trust is extremely important and we have seen this in our experience in using MySejahtera where cumulatively 16 billion QR code check-ins were recorded.
"There are two billion health assessment tool forms filled in and 18 million home surveillance orders against positive cases to monitor cases and their health status.
"How do you retain this health-seeking behaviour that people did during the Covid-19 pandemic when there's a clear and present danger from the virus, to utilising it post-Covid-19? So trust is extremely important," he said.
Also present at the panel session were Singapore Health Minister Ong Ye Kung; Ping An Group chief executive officer Jessica Tan and Doctor Anywhere chief financial officer Edwin Basuki.