Health authorities linked Vinh Long screenings to police-controlled VNeID

Vietnamese health authorities linked results from free health screenings for more than 3.37 million Vinh Long Province residents to VNeID, the national digital identity platform run by the Ministry of Public Security instead of the Ministry of Health, after a 90-day campaign that covered 99.99% of the province’s population as of Nov. 7.

Results from the screenings travel from local health stations to a provincial warehouse before reaching the national examination database, the National Population Database and each citizen’s permanent VNeID health record. All 124 commune and ward stations took part, with 121 reaching full local coverage and three staying above 90%. Under the federated model, provincial authorities check screening data quality before it moves to the national level.

The province runs 59 facilities cleared to conduct screenings, made up of 28 public institutions and 31 private ones. Every station can screen children younger than six. Stations also ran prevention and management programs for cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory illness.

Provincial leaders published a campaign plan and gave each administrative unit specific responsibilities. Inspection teams tracked progress in real time, and rapid-response mechanisms resolved obstacles as they arose. Businesses, hospitals, schools and private donors partnered with the campaign to reach difficult-to-access communities.

The Politburo issued Resolution 72-NQ/TW in September 2025, requiring at least one free yearly health check-up or disease screening for every citizen. The National Assembly passed the Law on Disease Prevention on December 10, 2025, creating the legal basis for controlling non-communicable diseases and promoting health. Directive No. 17/CT-TTg, dated May 6, 2026, told every ministry, sector and locality to hold free periodic screenings across the country, aiming for full coverage by the end of the year. The national push to screen about 100 million people remains incomplete.

Ho Chi Minh City brought together more than 10,000 health workers at 480 public and private facilities for a 150-day push aimed at 16 million residents. Hanoi started a free check-up program for 9.2 million people. The Ministry of Health says non-communicable diseases cause about 80% of deaths in Vietnam. The World Health Organization puts yearly Vietnamese deaths from those diseases at roughly 500,000.

The government describes VNeID as a coming super app covering healthcare records, education histories, tax accounts and administrative services. It currently has about 87.5 million digital identity accounts and offers 77 features in 19 service groups. The national digital transformation roadmap schedules healthcare system integration, connecting electronic health records with e-ID, in Phase 2 from 2026 to 2027.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security builds the VNeID mobile app, and the national police control biometric data. More than 61 million Vietnamese citizens use the app, which recorded over 29 million monthly uses in June 2025.

In July 2026, the Ministry of Health began a 100-day campaign to load health data for every citizen into VNeID electronic records. As of mid-August 2026, active VNeID electronic health records covered more than 41 million people, about 41% of the country’s population. Nguyen Tri Thuc described the aim as a national medical database linking check-up data to VNeID electronic health records to improve healthcare.

"comprehensive national repository of medical data"

Nguyen Tri Thuc, Tech Times

From July to September 2026, the Ministry of Health ran a drive to clean, enrich and standardize information in 12 specialized healthcare databases. Deputy Health Minister Nguyễn Tri Thức signed the plan, which aims to keep health data accurate, complete, current and able to work across systems.

The twelve databases cover areas such as social assistance and its beneficiaries, preventive care and HIV/AIDS, environmental management for healthcare, disability services, social work professionals, and child management. They also span food safety, treatment, workforce management, immunisation, and maternal, child and reproductive health. The plan calls for links to the National Population Database, the National Integrated Database and the National Data Centre.

The Ministry of Health requested that the Ministry of Public Security verify identification numbers, residence and citizenship, connect national databases and improve cybersecurity. At the commune level, police check identity and residence as health stations review medical information. Changes to records require professional verification.

The drive is meant to create lasting systems for routine checks, error detection and continuous updates, keeping health information current and trustworthy after the campaign finishes. Mistakes the system can spot are fixed automatically. Officials who gathered the information verify disagreements about identity, where people live, civil status or specialized details. Authorities have to obey security and data-protection rules, with extra care for health records, information about children and other sensitive details.

Departments managing each database must set data standards, required information fields and quality controls together with the National Health Information Centre. Provincial and city leaders must tell health departments, police, civil registration offices and other agencies to work together on carrying it out. Provincial health departments will handle training, assign duties for each database and track progress. Clinics, disease-control centers, vaccination sites, HIV/AIDS treatment centers, food-safety bodies and other organizations will check and refresh records in their own areas.

Communes must set up dedicated data teams for the effort. Police will check identity and residence locally, while civil registration officials confirm births and deaths in the community. Local officials will help verify information in the field when it is incomplete or wrong. The Ministry of Health says the drive should improve healthcare governance, policy decisions and public services while backing a national digital health system.

Provincial goals cover finishing examination workflows, grouping people by disease risk, improving referrals, and following up systematically with residents whom screenings flagged, especially older people, those with chronic conditions and anyone judged to face higher risk. Vinh Long has asked for clearer policy and funding guidance, additional staff, infrastructure, equipment and digital systems, smoother links between the warehouse and national databases, screening rules based on age, and clearer reimbursement rules from the National Health Insurance Fund. By August 2026, Vinh Long stood first among provinces for public-service quality and had finished 163 of 165 tasks in the central digital framework.

The Ministry of Public Security stopped collecting DNA and voice samples for the national ID database in May 2026 under Decision 2709/QĐ-BCA, acting after a public outcry over privacy. The 2023 Law on Identification requires face images and fingerprints, while DNA and voice collection are voluntary or carried out by law enforcement. Decree 320 orders people to connect their VNeID accounts to social media by December 31, 2026.