Scheduled to take effect from the start of 2024, one year following its enactment, the Medical Examination and Treatment Law intends to address deficiencies and emerging issues within medical examination and treatment activities. The goal is to enhance the quality of medical services, ensuring fairness, high efficiency, and compliance with international integration standards.
Set to become effective from the beginning of 2024, one year subsequent to its passage, the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment is geared towards addressing deficiencies and emerging challenges in medical examination and treatment activities. The primary objectives encompass the development and enhancement of the quality of medical services, ensuring fairness, high efficiency, and compliance with international integration standards. Additionally, the law aims to reinforce state management in these domains, surpassing its 2009 precursor with amendments introduced in 2017.
This legislation delineates the rights and responsibilities of patients, medical practitioners, and medical establishments engaged in examination and treatment. It covers areas such as technical expertise in medical practices, the integration of traditional and modern medicine, humanitarian and non-profit medical activities, the transfer of professional techniques, the application of new methods, clinical trials, and the handling of professional and technical errors. Conditions for the assurance of medical examination and treatment activities are also outlined, along with provisions for resource mobilization and transfer in times of disasters, catastrophes, group-A infectious diseases, or states of emergency.
Comprising 121 articles, the Law introduces several novel aspects aimed at elevating the professional skills of medical practitioners and enhancing service quality in medical establishments. It further focuses on facilitating public access to medical examination and treatment services, and revising regulations pertaining to the conditions necessary for the successful implementation of medical examination and treatment activities.
Practicing licenses
The Law introduces a change by renaming the practicing certificate as a practicing license. While the overall content of a practicing license remains largely consistent with that of a practicing certificate, notable adjustments include specifying a five-year validity period for the practicing license. In contrast, no expiration date was previously stipulated for a practicing certificate under the 2009 Law on Medical Examination and Treatment. Existing practicing certificates, granted prior to the Law’s enactment, will be converted into practicing licenses based on a government-determined timeline, and extensions will occur every five years from the conversion date.
The Law dictates that practicing licenses will be issued based on applicants’ professional titles, rather than their professional diplomas as per current regulations. This requirement applies to various healthcare professionals, including doctors, assistant doctors, nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians, clinical nutritionists, pre-hospital emergency care providers, clinical psychologists, herb doctors, and proprietors of traditional herbal remedies or healing methods. Each practitioner is eligible for only one practicing license, applicable nationwide.
As outlined in Article 29 of the Law, a practicing license granted by a foreign authority may be considered for recognition, given it fulfills certain conditions. First, recognition must be established under a treaty or international agreement to which Vietnam is a party, or it must be granted by a foreign authority subject to evaluation by the Ministry of Health for recognition. Second, the license must remain valid at the time of the recognition request. Lastly, the license must contain information about the holder’s professional title, equivalent to those specified in Points a through h, Article 26.1 of the Law.
Individuals holding practicing licenses from foreign authorities, recognized in Vietnam, are exempt from undergoing medical examination and treatment internships per Article 23 of the Law and from taking tests evaluating their medical examination and treatment practicing capacity as stipulated in Article 24 of the Law.
Improving and standardizing skills of medical practitioners
To enhance and standardize the professional skills of medical practitioners, the Law mandates that practicing licenses must be granted based on professional capacity tests organized by the National Medical Council. This marks a departure from current regulations, where the issuance of practicing licenses relies on the examination of application dossiers. The testing for the evaluation of medical examination and treatment practicing capacity before the issuance of a practicing license will be applicable to titles such as doctor, assistant doctor, nurse, midwife, laboratory technician, clinical nutritionist, pre-hospital emergency care provider, and clinical psychologist.
Practitioners seeking an extension of their licenses must fulfill additional conditions, including the imperative of continuously updating their medical knowledge.
Importantly, the Law stipulates that foreigners aspiring to engage in long-term medical examination and treatment practices in Vietnam must be proficient in Vietnamese. However, an exception is made for those practicing in the country under cooperation programs involving expert exchange, technology transfer, or training. It’s worth noting that this language proficiency requirement will be enforced from January 1, 2032.
Facilitation of people’s access to medical examination and treatment services
To enhance patient access to medical examination and treatment services, the Law undergoes changes to the existing four-level organizational system of medical establishments, transitioning to a more streamlined three-level system.
In regions with challenging socio-economic conditions, extremely difficult socio-economic conditions, border areas, islands, or state-run regional polyclinics, maternity hospitals, and commune health stations, the Law permits private polyclinics to allocate beds for patient monitoring and treatment for up to 72 hours. Exceptions may apply in cases of force majeure events such as disasters, catastrophes, or epidemics.
Simultaneously, the Law seeks to promote telehealth activities with the aim of achieving universal health coverage. This approach aims to enhance patient access to quality, cost-effective healthcare services anytime and anywhere, particularly for less severe and chronic diseases requiring long-term and regular care.
The Law introduces two forms of telehealth and telehealth support: telehealth between practitioners and patients and telehealth support between medical examination and treatment establishments. The first form will operate within the scope of practitioners’ practice, focusing on diseases and disease statuses outlined in the Minister of Health-issued list. Practitioners will assume responsibility for their disease diagnoses, treatment method designations, and prescription of medications. In the second form, practitioners at supported medical establishments will be accountable for their examination and treatment outcomes, with the supported establishments bearing the telehealth support costs to the providing establishments based on agreed rates.
New requirement to self-evaluate medical examination and treatment quality
To enhance the service quality of medical examination and treatment establishments, the Law introduces a new provision on quality self-evaluation.
As mandated by Article 58.3, medical examination and treatment establishments are required to conduct an annual self-evaluation of quality. This evaluation is based on fundamental quality standards for medical examination and treatment establishments issued by the Ministry of Health. The establishments must update the results of their self-evaluations on the information system dedicated to managing medical examination and treatment activities. These self-evaluation outcomes will serve as the foundation for the state management agency responsible for medical examination and treatment to conduct quality evaluation inspections for the establishments, following the principles of risk management.
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