by Dr. Chris McBrearty, UNDP Health Governance Specialist
Innovating for Transparency: How Digital Solutions Are Reducing Corruption Risk in Viet Nam’s Health System
January 22, 2025

Digital transformation is changing healthcare around the world, making systems more efficient, transparent, and trustworthy. New technologies help reduce mistakes and prevent corruption by supporting data accuracy and minimising the risk of negative human interference in processes. This shift is especially important in areas like medicine procurement, where transparency and accountability are crucial.
In Viet Nam, the healthcare system has embraced this change. A recent project, implemented in collaboration between UNDP Viet Nam and the National Centralised Drug Procurement Centre (NCDPC), has demonstrated how digital solutions can effectively reduce corruption risks in medicine procurement. Funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the project introduced a key tool - the Medicine Reference Price Calculation Software as part of the new NCDPC’s website. This software is designed to make the procurement process faster, more transparent, and less prone to corruption.
This new digital tool effectively removes human discretion from the reference price calculation process by using language detection and data standardisation technologies. Rather than depending on potentially inconsistent human decisions, the software automatically identifies the highest, lowest, and most frequent winning bid prices for medicines from the past 12 months. This approach enhances accuracy, speeds up the process, and significantly increases transparency.
This innovation is not just about fancy algorithms – it’s a practical solution to tackling deeper, systemic problems. Transparency in procurement is crucial for reducing the risk of corruption. By ensuring that decisions are made using standardised, verifiable data, the software helps close loopholes that could otherwise be exploited.
The initial success at the national level has paved the way for this innovation to scale. It has since been piloted at Ha Noi Department of Health and a national survey conducted by NCDPC has found that 94% of respondents from across Viet Nam wish for their procurement department to have access to the software. With clear efficiency gains and widespread support, the ambition is now to roll out the software to all 63 provincial Departments of Health and health facilities across the country. The potential here is huge: a process that once took up to two months for procurement teams could now be done in a single day with this software.
Digital innovation in procurement does more than just improve systems – it brings lasting benefits to Viet Nam’s healthcare sector. By streamlining processes and reducing opportunities for corruption, this type of digital transformation builds greater trust in public systems. However, for innovation to have a lasting impact, it must be sustainable. To ensure long-term success, it’s essential that these solutions become part of Viet Nam’s broader healthcare policies. NCDPC aims to integrate the regulation of the software into national legal and policy frameworks, while UNDP will continue advocating for its expansion across the healthcare system.
Furthermore, the benefits go beyond reducing corruption. They stretch further, making the health system more efficient and accountable, and ultimately improving patient outcomes. As Viet Nam continues its journey of digital transformation, projects like this serve as a model for how strategic innovation can solve complex challenges and improve governance.
By embracing innovation, it is possible to create systems that are not only smarter but also more transparent, trustworthy, and sustainable, ultimately improving people’s access to essential products and services.
More details on this innovation process may be found here: Use of Needs-Informed Innovation for Development (NI2D): A Case Study of Reducing Corruption Risk in Medicines Procurement in Viet Nam