BY James Kon

A new hub for public health intelligence and data was officially opened on Tuesday at the EVYD Campus in Jerudong.

Minister of Health Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar said the decision to open the Ministry of Health (MoH) Intelligence Hub demonstrates the strategic relationship among healthcare technology, data analytics, research and policy planning.

“The hub will provide a co-working space for different teams dealing with data and intelligence,” said the minister.

“Facilitating these interactions all in one location will provide Brunei with more value-added insights to craft data-driven decisions around population health with greater confidence,” he said.

“It will function as a sandbox for collaboration, knowledge generation and transformation,” he added.

The hub will house the nation’s Epidemic Intelligence and Response Unit (Disease Control Division), functioning as a surveillance centre to monitor the nationwide spread of diseases.

The hub also houses the Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Unit; and the Digital Health Unit. More government health units such as the Behavioural Insights Programme, the National Clinical Research Unit and the Non-Communicable Disease Prevention Unit could be located there in the future.

The Epidemic Intelligence and Response Unit Surveillance Centre leverages on a recently developed automated communicable disease surveillance system, linked with clinical and laboratory data from Bru-HIMS, to track and monitor the emergence and spread of over 50 infectious diseases in real-time.

The opening of the Hub was officiated by Dato Seri Setia Dr Haji Mohd Isham; and Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Finance and Economy II Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Mohd Amin Liew bin Abdullah.

Meanwhile, EVYD Technology CEO Chua Ming Jie said, “Brunei also leverages our data operating platform to integrate information from various data sources and process it into a common data model, enabling better health outcomes. The data is also used to power a whole range of digital health solutions.”

-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin