A fingerprint plugin for an old Vietnamese hospital: 750 users, but really 750 reception computers
What it is A Chrome extension that connects the hospital's web system to a USB fingerprint reader on the local machine, so patients can sign their electronic medical records with a fingerprint. Built only for Shali General Hospital's own use.
Why it's hot Vietnam requires full electronic medical records by year-end 2026 and allows biometric patient confirmation; hospital IT is installing plug-ins on hundreds of workstations one by one, so users equal computers.
DHow you could ride it Skip this plugin. What's worth borrowing is the idea: before the policy deadline, build a universal bridge that lets web apps talk to local hardware across hospital systems and device models, and sell it per workstation license or bundled with the hardware. The catch: you need to already be inside the local healthcare IT circle.
633 users · rating 5.0 (1)
HIS Fingerprint Connector is a Chrome extension written by an IT staffer at Sa Dec General Hospital in Dong Thap province, Vietnam. It does one thing: lets the web-based hospital information system (HIS) use the USB fingerprint readers at the reception desk, so a patient can sign an electronic medical record with a fingerprint. It launched in August and hit 600-700 users by early November, on a curve as straight as a ruler. The driver isn't the market, it's a hard deadline from Vietnam's Ministry of Health: all hospitals must be on electronic medical records by December 2026 31. You can't build this one, but the gap behind it, a policy deadline plus a web system plus local hardware, is worth a look.
One visit
In Sep 2026 11, a team from Thanh Binh Regional Medical Center and Sa Lu Second Regional Medical Center in the same province—managers, operations staff, and IT—went to Sa Lu General Hospital specifically to learn how to bring electronic medical records online. A hospital website article published in Sep 13 says that alongside the hospital leadership and department heads, those receiving them included the head of "VNPT Đồng Tháp — software vendor."
This hospital has existed for 1905 years. It's a provincial level-2 hospital with an official quota of 500 beds, but it has actually set up nearly 850 beds and serves more than 800,000 people (per Vietnamese media). In 2025 September it posted an inquiry notice for "procurement of equipment to support electronic medical records"; a year later, it is already the place other hospitals in the province come to learn from.
Right between those two events, in 2026 Aug 11, a plugin called HIS Fingerprint Connector appeared in the Chrome Web Store. Its store blurb is a single Vietnamese sentence: "Connects HIS with fingerprint scanners to help verify patient identity. Developed by QUOC IT – BVĐK SA ĐÉC." BVĐK SA ĐÉC is Sa Đéc General Hospital.
What it actually does
The long description lists five features: connects the browser-based HIS to the fingerprint readers at reception and in exam rooms; fixes the problem where HTTPS pages calling local device services get blocked by the browser as "mixed content"; identifies patients by fingerprint in seconds; lets patients "digitally press their thumb" on test orders, prescriptions and electronic medical records; and auto-connects in the background when the HIS page opens.
The second point is the real reason it exists. The HIS is an HTTPS web app, while the fingerprint reader's driver runs on localhost, and modern browsers won't let the former call the latter directly. You either wait for the software vendor to change it, change browser policy on every PC, or, as this IT person did, write a 29 KB plugin to act as the middleman.
The rest of the info also points to an "internal tool": version 3.2 (updated 10-07), Vietnamese only, developer contact is a Gmail address htquoc66, no website, no payment. The description ends with a disclaimer that the plugin is "developed specifically for this hospital's internal HIS workflows," and the author accepts no responsibility if it's installed on outside systems. The GitHub account tied to that Gmail has a 2023-year-old university thesis project (inference: a young person who graduated a few years ago and works in hospital IT).
How users grew
| Date | Users | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| 08-11 | Launched | Chrome Web Store |
| 09-01 | 51 | Third-party plugin stats site |
| 10-08 | 332 | Same as above |
| 11-01 | 633,1 ratings (5 stars) | Chrome Web Store |
| 11-06 | About 750 | Third-party plugin stats site (not separately verified) |
Four or five new users a day, neither fast nor slow, with no spikes. This is the pattern you'd see if IT were installing the plugin on workstations one department at a time, via USB drive or Group Policy. A hospital with 850 actual beds has several hundred computers across reception, exam rooms and ward nursing stations, and one install per machine counts as one user, so 600–700 fits (inference). Whether the two sister hospitals that came to visit also installed it, I couldn't find out.
Outside the store page, there's nothing about it online: no one mentioned it on X in 90 days, no media coverage, no forum posts, and just a single rating in the store. It doesn't need acquisition; its users are colleagues in the same building.
Why now: a command with a deadline
- Fingerprint signing is allowed: Vietnam Ministry of Health Circular No. 13/2025/TT-BYT took effect 2025-07-21 and allows patients to confirm electronic medical records using legal e-signatures, biometrics, or other electronic confirmation methods (thuvienphapluat.vn).
- There's a deadline: Ministry of Health Decision No. 586/QĐ-BYT and a ministerial directive from 2026 require medical facilities to complete electronic medical records by 2026-12-31 at the latest (luatvietnam.vn, baochinhphu.vn).
- Everyone is rushing: the Ministry of Health's electronic medical records platform shows 11-06 facilities already connected, out of 1,278 (benhandientu.moh.gov.vn).
Most patients don't have an e-signature certificate, so having them press a fingerprint is the simplest option. Hospitals across the country are therefore filling the same gap in the same few months: how to plug signature pads, fingerprint readers and ID card readers into the HIS. Sa Đéc hospital built its own.
Who else is doing the same thing
In Vietnam, hospital fingerprint integration is mostly done by vendors: the HIS Sa Đéc uses is from VNPT (VNPT Đồng Tháp is its software provider). Big players like VNPT-HIS, Viettel and FPT.EMR typically build fingerprint and signature pad support into their own on-premise clients, not via the Chrome Web Store. Đồng Tháp General Hospital announced in 2026 April that it would use patient fingerprints for electronic medical records in its HIS, which was a vendor solution. Hardware sellers are also in the game: SmartID sells fingerprint-enabled citizen ID card readers for hospital EMRs, and GMTech offers patient fingerprint identification systems.
The Vietnamese hospital plugins on the Chrome Web Store are all one-hospital small tools: HIS Auto-Fill for auto-filling traditional medicine records (16 users), lab result lookups and the like. None of them integrate hardware.
The bigger rival is the state: Vietnam's national digital ID app VNeID is integrating health insurance cards, and some hospitals already use VNeID to sign electronic medical records. Once it's widespread, in-hospital fingerprint signing may not be needed at all.
The same model is very large elsewhere: Chrome plugins that bridge web pages to local hardware. The biggest in the store are Signer.Digital for digital-signature USB tokens (3M users, listed 2018), Topaz SigPlusExtLite for signature pads (1M, 2015), ePadLink (200k) and the Thales smart card bridge (10k). They're all companion pieces to hardware vendors' products: the plugin is free, and the money is in hardware and licenses.
So the cell "Vietnamese hospitals + fingerprints + Chrome plugin" is almost empty not because it's untapped ground, but because nobody else takes this route.
If it were you
In one line: this plugin can't be copied, and isn't worth copying. What it tells you is a signal: a small-language, single-site plugin whose user count climbs steadily while barely getting ratings is most likely an institution rolling it out internally, not market demand.
Who it fits: teams already doing systems integration for hospitals, clinics and pharmacies in a given country, with hospital IT relationships and familiarity with local HIS vendors and hardware models. For you, the transferable idea is this: before a policy deadline, web systems connecting to local hardware (fingerprint readers, signature pads, ID card readers, insurance cards) will generate a lot of demand for "bridges." You could build a universal bridge that works across HIS products and hardware models (browser extension + local agent + admin console), sold per workstation or bundled with hardware.
Who it doesn't fit: solo developers who want an indie product that grows from organic store traffic. The users here won't search the store for plugins; the IT department installs them centrally. The buyer is the hospital, which means a procurement process, and the software vendor VNPT itself sits in the same meeting room and can build whatever piece you make into its own product.
How to do it: if you really are in this industry, first get one hospital, one HIS, and one or two of the most common fingerprint readers or card readers working, give it to IT for free, and turn it into a showcase other hospitals in the same province can see. Only then talk about per-workstation pricing, or bundling with hardware distributors.
How to get customers: not through the store, but through hospital-to-hospital visits and knowledge sharing (exactly what happened at Sa Đéc), provincial health department digitization meetings, and channels with HIS vendors and hardware distributors.
When to get in before the wave: this round of Vietnam's deadline is 2026-12-31, so starting today is already late; what's left is patching gaps and maintenance after the deadline. When other countries have similar electronic medical record or e-signature mandates, enter six months to a year early.
Signs you've misread it: if this plugin's user count keeps rising past 1,000, and ratings or Vietnamese reviews from other hospitals start appearing, that means other VNPT-HIS hospitals are using it, and a "universal bridge" still has a small window in Vietnam. Conversely, if the user count stalls at 700–800 after December, one hospital has finished installing.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one HIS vendors' built-in fingerprint and signature integration, such as VNPT-HIS / Viettel / FPT.EMR Other 2025–2026, rolled out with electronic medical records Covers most public hospitals in Vietnam (the Ministry platform shows 1,278 facilities connected to EMRs) Built by vendors into on-premise clients or the HIS itself; this is a free Chrome extension the hospital wrote itself, which only works with its own HIS SmartID fingerprint-enabled CCCD card readers / GMTech patient fingerprint identification Other Not verified Not verified Sells hardware and integration solutions; this is just a software bridge with no commercialization HIS Auto-Fill – Bệnh Án YHCT, Danh Sách Xét Nghiệm and other internal Vietnamese hospital extensions Chrome 2026 16 users and so on, all very small Does form filling or lookups, not hardware; all single-hospital internal tools Topaz SigPlusExtLite (signature pad bridge) Chrome 2015-11 1M users The same web-to-local-hardware bridge model, but built as a vendor-grade, cross-system universal product; the money comes from hardware Signer.Digital (PKI USB token signing) Chrome 2018-11 3M users, pricing on its website A universal digital-signature bridge that works across websites and charges license fees; it serves just one hospital VNeID e-signature / biometrics Big-company features Used for electronic medical records from 2025 National identity app A national platform solution that may eventually replace in-hospital fingerprint signing - Where users come from
- Confirmed Hospital IT deploying to workstations: the blurb names BVĐK Sa Đéc as developer; the disclaimer says it's limited to the hospital's HIS; user count climbs steadily with almost no ratings
- Confirmed Policy event (EMR deadline): 13/2025/TT-BYT allows biometric confirmation; 586/QĐ-BYT and the ministerial directive require EMRs completed by 2026-12-31; the hospital procured EMR equipment in 2025-09
- Inference Sister hospitals in the province came to learn and then installed it too: 2026-09-11 Thanh Bình and Sa Đéc 2 two regional medical centers came to learn EMR deployment (bvdksadec.vn); whether they installed it I didn't verify
HIS Fingerprint Connector (pabpakmemioibidkcbfhaednegkafjfg) research report
Source: Chrome Web Store · Research date 2026-11-06. Store page: chromewebstore.google.com/detail/his-fingerprint-connector/p…
Bottom line
An internal tool written by IT staff at a Vietnamese public hospital (Sa Đéc General Hospital, BVĐK Sa Đéc, in Đồng Tháp Province) for its own use: it connects the web-based HIS to USB fingerprint readers at reception so patients can "sign with a fingerprint" on electronic medical records. User growth is driven by the Vietnamese Ministry of Health mandating electronic medical records, with the hospital rolling this plugin out to its workstations. It's not market demand. It's not a product you can build and run; it's an in-hospital rollout driven by policy.
1. What it is
- Store blurb (Vietnamese): "Connects HIS with fingerprint scanners to help verify patient identity. Developed by QUOC IT – BVĐK SA ĐÉC."
- Features (long description): ① connects the browser-based HIS to fingerprint readers at reception / in exam rooms; ② fixes Mixed Content blocking when HTTPS pages call local device services; ③ identifies and verifies patients by fingerprint; ④ patients "digitally press their thumb" to sign test orders, prescriptions and electronic medical records (EMR); ⑤ auto-connects in the background when the HIS page opens.
- Version 3.2, updated 2026-10-07, package size 29 KiB, Vietnamese only; developer email [email protected], not registered as an EU trader; no website, no in-app purchases. The disclaimer says it is "developed specifically for this hospital's internal HIS workflows" and the author isn't responsible if it causes problems on other systems. (Store page, read via Jina 2026-11-06)
- The developer htquoc66 has a 2023-year-old student project on GitHub called "NienLuan_VueJS_Frontend" (niên luận = university thesis), which suggests an in-house engineer who graduated a few years ago. (Jina search results)
2. Data
| Timeline | Users | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-11 | Launched | chromestore library item.published |
| 2026-09-01 | 51 | Extops curve in the recall card |
| 2026-10-08 | 332 | Same as above |
| 2026-11-01 | 633 (1 ratings, 5.0) | chromestore library item_snap |
| 2026-11-06 | ~750 | Extops curve in the recall card (not separately verified) |
Growth is almost a straight line, 4–5 users a day. That's the curve you get when IT installs the plugin on workstations one by one (or pushes it in batches via Group Policy): no spikes, no drop-offs.
3. Why it's "growing": in-hospital rollout driven by policy
- Policy mandate: Vietnam's Ministry of Health Circular No. 13/2025/TT-BYT takes effect 2025-07-21, allowing patient confirmation on e-medical records via three methods: a legal e-signature, biometric technology, or another electronic confirmation method (thuvienphapluat.vn). MoH Decision No. 586/QĐ-BYT and the minister's 2026 directive require facilities to complete e-medical records by 2026-12-31 at the latest (luatvietnam.vn, baochinhphu.vn, suckhoedoisong.vn). The MoH e-medical records platform shows 1,278 facilities connected as of 2026-11-06 (benhandientu.moh.gov.vn).
- The hospital timeline lines up: Sa Đéc Hospital posted a price inquiry for "e-medical records supporting equipment" on 2025-09 (bvdksadec.vn, 2025-09-06); 2026-09-11 two regional medical centers in the province (Thanh Bình, Sa Đéc 2) came to this hospital to learn its e-medical records deployment (bvdksadec.vn, 2026-09-13). The extension was listed 2026-08, and user growth was fastest from 9 through October, right when the hospital's e-medical records went live and fingerprint signing was rolled out to every workstation.
- Why it's a Chrome extension: The HIS is an HTTPS web page, and the fingerprint reader's driver service runs locally on localhost. The browser blocks requests like this as Mixed Content / private network access. The extension's background script can bridge the two sides around that restriction. A 29KB extension is simpler than having the vendor modify the HIS or changing browser policy on every machine. The description lists this as selling point ②.
- Why the user count can climb: A provincial regional general hospital has hundreds of reception, clinic, and ward workstations, and each one installed is a user. 600–750 users is about the number of workstations at one large hospital (perhaps plus sister facilities in the province that came to learn). Whether Thanh Bình / Sa Đéc 2 installed it is unverified.
4. Growth tactics
- In-hospital IT deployment (confidence: strong inference): the author is the hospital's IT staff and the users are its own employees. Evidence: the profile names BVĐK Sa Đéc as the developer, the disclaimer says "for internal HIS use only," and the curve is a straight line.
- Peer hospitals swapping notes (maybe): 2026-09 two regional medical centers came to look at the electronic health records; if they also run the same HIS and fingerprint scanners, users will add up. Unverified.
- No marketing at all: no website; nothing on X (x-radar 90 days 0 posts); apart from the store page, nothing about it online; the store shows only 1 ratings.
5. Competitors and similar apps
The same thing (Vietnamese HIS fingerprint reader integration):
- Major Vietnamese HIS / EMR vendors (VNPT-HIS, Viettel, FPT.EMR, etc.) build fingerprint / signature pad integration into their own products, usually as a locally installed client plugin, not through the Chrome Web Store. Example: Lai Châu Provincial General Hospital 2026-04 announced "patient fingerprints for e-medical records in the HIS software," a vendor solution (the hospital's Facebook post).
- Hardware vendors' solutions: SmartID sells fingerprint-enabled CCCD (citizen ID) card readers for hospital e-medical records (smartid.com.vn); GMTech has a patient fingerprint identification system (Facebook video).
- Small Vietnamese hospital tools on the Chrome Web Store: HIS Auto-Fill – Bệnh Án YHCT (16 users, 2026-01) and Danh Sách Xét Nghiệm (lab result lookup, user count unknown). The VNPT-HIS Helper mentioned in the recall card has 6 users (not found in our database, unverified). All are internal tools written by a single hospital or individual.
- The most likely future replacement is the signature / biometric function of Vietnam's national ID app VNeID: hospitals are already pushing integration of the BHYT health insurance card into VNeID (official bvdksadec.vn notice), and Hồng Ngọc Hospital uses VNeID to sign e-medical records (YouTube).
The same pattern (web page ↔ local hardware Chrome bridge), where the real scale is:
- Signer.Digital (PKI digital signature USB token): 3M users, listed 2018 years ago (chromestore database)
- Topaz SigPlusExtLite (signature pad): 1M users, 2015 years (chromestore database)
- ePadLink SigCaptureWeb: 200k, 2015 years; Thales Smart Card Bridge: 10k, 2016 years; Etikimza smart card: 40k; ACS APDU Bridge: 1,000 (chromestore database)
- These are all bundled plugins from hardware vendors. User counts follow hardware shipments. The money comes from hardware and SDK licensing, and the plugin itself is free.
Conclusion: On the specific point of "Vietnamese hospital HIS fingerprint reader integration," there are almost no Chrome extension competitors. But that's because others don't take this route (vendors build it into the client), not because there's an empty market.
6. Differentiation
Compared with the vendor approach, its only difference is: the hospital wrote it itself, it's free, it's deployed in the lightest way (a Chrome extension), and it's bound specifically to its own HIS domain. This is genuinely why it has users (the hospital doesn't have to wait for the vendor), but the differentiation disappears outside this hospital: permissions cover only one site, it works only with its own HIS, it's Vietnamese-only, and the author explicitly says it isn't supported for use outside the hospital.
7. Visibility
Almost nobody knows about it yet: it's free, no media coverage, no discussion on X or online, and no one has copied it. Honestly, there's nothing worth copying.
8. What to borrow
- "Policy deadline + web-based system + local hardware" = a bridge is inevitable: Vietnam's 2026-12-31 e-medical records deadline means more than 1,278 facilities are retrofitting hardware integrations like signatures, fingerprints, and ID card readers. The real business is a general-purpose bridge that works across HIS vendors and hardware models (browser extension + local agent + admin console), sold to hospital IT or systems integrators, with revenue from hardware bundling or per-workstation licensing. Topaz and Signer.Digital's millions of users show this model can scale, but the revenue comes from hardware or certificates, not the plugin itself.
- Warning signs: Chrome Web Store extensions that are "minor language + match only one site + user count rising in a straight line + almost no ratings" are basically pushed internally by institutions, and shouldn't be read as market demand.
9. Uncertain
- 11-06 That 750 number comes from extops in the recall card; our database only has 11-01 of 633.
- Whether any other hospitals use it besides Sa Đéc Hospital (such as sister facilities in the province) is unverified.
- Which vendor's HIS the hospital uses and which fingerprint reader model it has were not found.
- The competitor "VNPT-HIS Helper 6 users" mentioned in the recall card was not found in our database.
Sources
- Chrome Web Store page (read via Jina, 2026-11-06)
- chromestore database: item, item_snap (2026-11-01), search results (fingerprint / signature pad / smart card reader / digital signature token / his)
- Recall data card /home/ljr/fanout/why/cards/chrome_pabpakmemioibidkcbfhaednegkafjfg.json (extops curve)
- bvdksadec.vn/Home/thong-bao/ve-viec-thong-bao-moi-chao-gia-g…
- bvdksadec.vn/Home/hoat-dong-benh-vien/doan-cong-tac-trung-ta…
- thuvienphapluat.vn/hoi-dap-phap-luat/03-hinh-thuc-ky-xac-nha…
- luatvietnam.vn/y-te/quyet-dinh-586-qd-byt-2026-phe-duyet-ke-…
- baochinhphu.vn/cac-co-so-kham-chua-benh-phai-hoan-thanh-ho-s…
- benhandientu.moh.gov.vn/ (1,278 facilities, 2026-11-06)
- www.facebook.com/Benhviendakhoatinhlaichau/posts/16348157911… (Lai Châu Hospital 2026-04 fingerprint e-medical records)
- smartid.com.vn/mot-so-thiet-bi-ha-tang-ky-thuat-cho-trien-kh…
- github.com/htquoc66/NienLuan_VueJS_Frontend
- x-radar: "HIS Fingerprint Connector" 90 days 0 posts