Battambang referral hospital is slated to be Cambodia’s first provincial hospital to go digital in a move that will see it use cloud-based management operations to reduce workload as demand to go online in the sector grows.

Kak Seila, director of Battambang Provincial Referral Hospital, said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has helped fund the project that will transform the hospital using services from Peth Yoeung, a local cloud-based hospital operating and health care platform.

Peth Yoeung team at Kantha Bopha Hospital in Phnom Penh on July 29, 2020. Picture: Supplied

“It’s easy to store documents, the documents would be in a system,” Kak Seila said. “For other provincial hospitals, there are none, the Battambang hospital has signed an MoU with UNDP which funds it, and Peth Yoeung will help set it up,” he said.

Kak Seila said he was unaware of the total costs of transforming the hospital but said in 2019, the figure was about $90,000.

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“It’s a trial in Battambang because it’s big spending. In 2019, it was detailed to me that it would cost $90,000, so the hospital couldn’t afford it.”

Kak Seila said the new system will help facilitate the hospital’s work. “Printing will reduce and documents will be stored for long time, it’s not like hard copies that after 5 or 6 years will keep piling,” he said.

“It’s easy to find documents, just we need ID code and then information will come up. Patients can just give us their ID number, then we can check. With the new system, all information about patients will show,” he added.

Bin Socheat, Peth Yoeung’s business operations advisor, said the setting up the programme will take five months, including conducting training to users, mentoring and distant support.

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“Peth Yoeurng will help transform Battambang hospital operations into digital in registrations of patients, treatment services, medicines and revenue management,” Bin Socheat said.

He said the Battambang referral hospital is the first provincial hospital to go digital or transform their hospital from paper-based to cloud-based digital operation management.

“Storing documents will be easy…they can save costs by between 10 to 12 percent annually from some administrative costs,” added Bin Socheat. “They will reduce printing and contribute to reducing the effects on the environment. Work will be smoother and more reliable for both patients and health workers.”

The hospital will become the 11th state hospital in the country to go digital, set up by Peth Yoeung, Bin Socheat said. More than 100 private hospitals have also signed up to the system, he said.

UNDP referred the questions about the project to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Cambodia when asked. WHO did not reply to a request for comment.