'Near to home, the better': Dzulkefly on healthcare reform

PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry is shifting towards a more patient-centred healthcare system, with services increasingly brought closer to people's homes through digitalisation and other innovations, says Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.

He said he wanted to fulfil his ambition of modernising healthcare delivery through various initiatives, platforms and approaches during the 15th Parliament.

"During this 15th Parliament, I want to fulfil my ambition to establish, enhance and modernise what I would simply describe as the assembly of a modern system and delivery of healthcare," he said in his speech at the launch of the Medicines By Post initiative at the Communications Ministry.

Dzulkefly said the ministry faced various challenges, including non-communicable diseases (NCDs), food safety and nutrition, environmental health and planetary health, requiring sustained long-term efforts.

He said the ministry would continue strengthening the healthcare system and improving service delivery.

"Whatever the vehicle, whatever the method, whatever the platform, whatever the initiative, I will certainly fulfil it as soon as possible," he said.

Dzulkefly said the ministry had established a Digital Health Division and Health Transformation Office to lead and manage new initiatives.

Health financing reform and digitalisation were among the areas being pursued, including the development of a national electronic medical records (EMR) system to enable interoperability across healthcare facilities.

"We have one citizen, one record, and a national EMR for interoperability of all facilities, throughout hospitals and clinics, public and private," he said.

Dzulkefly said patient experience and the patient journey remained key benchmarks in improving healthcare delivery.

"We can introduce any initiative, digitalisation in programmes, but patient journey and patient experience are the benchmarks," he said.

He said this was also the rationale behind initiatives such as Medicines By Post, which allowed patients to receive medicines without travelling to healthcare facilities solely for collection.

"We want to create or develop a system of healthcare delivery near to home, away from hospital, away from facility. Near to home, the better," he said.

The initiative could save patients time and travel costs, ensure continuity of treatment and reduce congestion at healthcare facilities, particularly hospitals.

"Imagine, they do not have to come just to get their medicines. It saves time and costs. This is patient experience," he said.

Dzulkefly also highlighted the MyUBAT application, developed in 2021 as part of the ministry's digitalisation efforts.

He said MyUBAT had nearly 893,000 registered users, with more than six million medicine-supply appointment transactions conducted through the platform.

He said the ministry had introduced various value-added pharmacy services over the years, including Pharmacy Drive-Through in 2008, Medicines By Post in 2011, Local Follow-up Medicine Supply Centres in 2012, medicine lockers in 2014 and Third-Party Follow-up Medicine Supply in 2021.

Dzulkefly said the latest expansion of Medicines By Post, supported by the Communications Ministry and Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), was another step towards modernising pharmacy services.

He also thanked Pos Malaysia Berhad for its longstanding partnership with the Health Ministry in delivering medicines to patients.

Dzulkefly said the ultimate aim was to make healthcare services not only available, but easier to access, more people-friendly and responsive to patients' needs.