Ministry of Public Health to set up Clearing House

Bangkok, 3 May 2013,Minister of Public Health Dr. Pradit Sintawanarong on Thursday told the media about the establishing of a national Clearing House to handle budget as well as information regarding public health. The comment came after the meeting on the matter with related agencies including the National Health Security Office, the Comptroller General’s Department, the Ministry of Public Health, the Health Systems Research Institute, the Health Insurance System Research Office, the Central office for Healthcare Information, the Thai Case Mix Center, and Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine. According to Dr. Pradit, the Clearing House would be operated as a public company, and managed by representatives from related agencies. He said academics attending the meeting had come up with methods to design and construct the database as well as to manage the Clearing House transactions for future agencies. The Public Health Minister expected the establishment of the Clearing House to be the completed on October 1, 2014. He said the ministry will be the center’s biggest customer as it would need the database to formulate strategies for its policies in the future.