Hospital Roundup: Dr Win Htun, Aung Yadana Hospital, Myanmar

By Medha Basu

Employees and patients are reluctant to change old ways, says Dr Win Htun.

Dr Win Htun is the Executive Director, Aung Yadana Hospital in Myanmar, which he started as a clinic in 1998. He is also serving his second term as General Secretary of the Myanmar Private Hospitals’ Association.

GovInsider interviewed Dr Win Htun on the hospital’s achievements this year and his priorities for next year.

What are your biggest achievements in 2015?

Our hospital received ISO 9001:2005 accreditation for medical check ups. We also took part in the National External Quality Assessment Scheme for the quality of our lab tests and procedures. We are the first private sector hospital in Myanmar to be assessed by the National Health Laboratory.

We upgraded basic investigation services, our training department, and improved emergency care services.

What challenges did you face?

Most of the employees are reluctant to change from customary practices to the new IT facilities. Patients also don't want to change to new processes like online reservation, registration processes and queue system.

What are your key priorities for next year?

My key priority is to improve our IT systems for patient records, barcode and queue systems to integrate outpatient services, and picture archiving and communication system for radiology test records. Another priority is to improve our human resources department.

To what extent has your hospital adopted digital patient records?

We use digital patient records for radiology investigation, laboratory results, pharmacy records for all outpatient and inpatient treatments, seafarer medical check up system (for online updates), queue system for pharmacy, and to back up patient records (although we have not the adopted a complete electronic medical records system yet).

What impact have digital patient records had on the hospital?

We have more accurate and faster services with more efficiency and secure keeping of medical records.

But specialist doctors and some medical officers are reluctant to change to digital patient records. It is difficult to change as a whole.

How have cloud technologies helped better manage the hospital?

With cloud, we are able to provide faster services and quality care for patients with accurate information. It is also easy to operate the hospital and reduce the need for manpower.

In which area do sensors and robotics have the most potential?

They have the most potential in investigation services, especially for the whole laboratory process. It also has potential in patient identifying processes for all care from start to finish.