Ericsson Vietnam gets nation into good health

Ericsson is aiming to consult and assist relevant local authorities to provide e–health or mobile health services to people living in rural areas via the end-to-end use of the 3G broadband networks in Vietnam, coupled with Ericsson’s Mobile Health Solution Kit, which was globally launched in June 2010.

Denis Brunetti, vice president of Ericsson Vietnam, presented Ericsson’s pivotal role as the cross-industry consultant and enabling change agent both within and beyond the ICT industry at the recently held Vietnam Telecomp 2010 Conference in Ho Chi Minh City.

In his ‘Connecting Vietnam’ speech, Brunetti explained how extended 3G coverage, combined with Ericsson’s broad ranging consulting and system integration expertise, could facilitate the introduction of new and innovative service offerings to the community at large.

“In the future, there’s absolutely no reason why essential services, such as e-health, e-learning, e-transport and e-banking can’t be delivered to all people who live and work within the 3G coverage range. Indeed, Ericsson is realising the ultimate vision of making 3G the life application”.

"Initially, we wish to focus on piloting our e-health or mobile health service capability, prior to driving initiatives across the e–education, e–banking and e–transport sectors in the coming years in Vietnam," said Brunetti.

The company intends to collaborate with the Vietnamese relevant governmental bodies, operators and the third party local partners to provide the solution trial.

Ericsson’s focus on e-health stems from the fact that in many countries, such as Vietnam and India, for instance, over 70 per cent of the population may live in rural environments whilst only 10 per cent of the hospitals and medical facilities are accessible to these people, many of whom need to travel at least 30km to their nearest healthcare centre.  

"Naturally, Vietnamese people consider their health a top priority, and there’s a growing need to deliver these services to an increasing number of people living in rural communities across Vietnam.

“Since launching the initiative at Vietnam Telecomp 2010 in November, we’ve had initial discussions with the Ministry of Health’s representatives and various ICT players, and the feedback has been extremely positive” said Brunetti.