Dr. Troedsson made the remarks while evaluating Vietnam’s health information network. He said the health information network must be rebuilt to avoid overlapping information from different programmes and organizations. In addition, Vietnam needs to strengthen data-collecting staff from the central to grass-root levels.

To overcome these difficulties, Dr Troedsson said Vietnam needs to issue health quotations at all levels, standardize the current health system, and apply information and technology in evaluating and totalling.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sally Stansfield, executive secretary of the Health Metrics Network (HMN), said countries must constantly invest in the health system to better serve citizens.

According to Dr Sally Stansfield, Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Mongolia concluded a four-day workshop in Hanoi on March 8 to identify major barriers in their health information collection.

The six nations agreed on the need to standardize their systems that collect health information, to build an integrated database and to strengthen their staff capacity for running the systems. Otherwise, they will face grave health risks as their governments are not in a position to sort out health priorities and apply appropriate services to safeguard their citizens’ health.