Day 1: 16:55 – 17:10
Bach Mai hospital clinical trials: Opportunities, challenges and prospects
Abstract
Dr. Thanh Van Do , MD, PhD(Head of Human resources, Bach Mai
Hospital, Vietnam )Short CV
Dr. Thanh is a clinical doctor at the Center for Tropical Diseases and Head of Personnel
Department at Bach Mai Hospital, Vietnam. His research primarily focuses on thedevelopment and implement of effective interventions to improve survival and treatment
quality in infectious diseases. He has more than 25 years of working as clinicians andofficers at various position in the related area. He has led and participated in several
multi-disciplinary research studies on infectious diseases, capacity building, andinternational cooperation in Vietnam. He earned his Ph.D. in Infectious Diseases at 108
Institute of Clinical Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences with thesis “Mutations in theHBV PreS/S gene and IFNAR1 gene polymorphisms in Hepatitis B patients”. He led along-term project to assess the clinical presentations and mortality risk factors of
COVID-19 during the epidemic of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant in Vietnam among
critically ill patients with COVID-19. He is also working as investigator and co-author ofseveral projects and articles in the field of infectious diseases that focus on diagnosis andtreatment of emerging and re-emerging diseases in Vietnam.

Bach Mai Hospital (BMH) is the one of the biggest teaching and referral Hospital in Vietnam. The hospitaloffers a comprehensive spectrum of clinical specialties through its 55 clinical, laboratories (including two
national reference labs), diagnostic imaging, functional departments and a Bach Mai Medical College. The
leading majors including emergency medicine and critical care, cardiology, neurology, tropical diseases andmicrobiology, gastroenterology, urology, endocrinology, geriatric medicine, and mental health. Additionally,
the hospital has 4.300 employees, including nearly 1.000 medical doctors. Over two million people visit thehospital as outpatients every year, and more than 150,000 inpatients.
Scientific research, direction and training are one of the primary tasks of BMH as national referral hospitalin the North of Vietnam. During the past five years, we has been conducted or participated in more than 40national or regional level studies, and nearly 1,500 hospital level studies with an average of about 250
publications each year.
Last year, the hospital hosted or participated in 67 clinical trials. With an annual increase in the number oftrials of about 15-20%, BMH has established a unit dedicated to the management and coordination ofclinical trials. The unit is operated by a network of major clinicians from each department of BMH, andcoordinated by researchers with experience in clinical trials.
From our recent experiences, the first shortage of implementing clinical trials in BMH setting is the lack ofhuman resource specialized, including physician-scientists, clinical research associates, and datamanagement.
Addition to that, most of physicians are overwhelmed by clinical work, thus not warranting clinical trialrelated workloads. The secondly is the lack of technical infrastructure for effective data collection andmanagement, including inadequate implementation of electronic medical records. This prolongs thedeployment time of the trials and requires more staff to execute. Limited professional and continuoustrainings in RCT implementation were also a major disadvantage. Finally, there is a limitation in theapplication of clinical trials in diagnostic and therapeutic practice due to the fact that most of conducted trial
are not led by the hospital.
Our vision in the next five years is to become the leading facility in implementing clinical trials, which
contributes significantly to the development and translation new diagnostic and therapeutic methods toclinical practice in Vietnam.
We plan a strategy with three main components including, i) Establish a larger network with multiples
stakeholders to conduct clinical trial research in the region; ii) Seeking cooperation for capacity andinfrastructure development to implement more effective trials; and iii) Develop clinical trial curriculum forundergraduate students.