Press Releases

Nordic visit helps enhance HK's informatics system: PSHWF

        Hong Kong can learn from Nordic countries their innovative applications of information technology (IT) in health informatics to beef up its medical surveillance system, the Permanent Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Mrs Carrie Yau, said yesterday (May 14, local time) in Helsinki, Finland.

        An electronic based surveillance system could provide swift and effective contact tracing, and enhanced real time data sharing between the Hospital Authority (HA) and the Department of Health (DH) in the prevention and control of communicable diseases, she added.

        At the invitation of the Finnish Government, Mrs Yau and her team including the Consultant (Health Informatics) of the Hospital Authority, Dr James Kong, and Principal Medical and Health Officer of the Department of Health, Dr Heston Kwong, arrived yesterday at Helsinki for a series of meetings with health officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, experts from the Finnish National Public Health Institute, and top academics in public health.

        They had also visited hospital facilities for infectious diseases.

        Speaking after her meetings with senior Finnish officials including the Minister of Social Affairs and Health, Ms Sinikka Monkare, as well as top public health experts, Mrs Yau noted Hong Kong's efforts and investments in containing the spread of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and avian influenza had been recognised by the international community.

        Hong Kong is one of the few Asian countries that have been spared in the avian influenza outbreak worldwide earlier this year.

        "We have shared with Finnish officials and experts the experience we have learned in the SARS outbreak and previous avian influenza outbreaks, and the action programmes that we have drawn up in prevention and control of communicable diseases.

        "They are informed that tremendous efforts and huge amount of money have been invested to fortify the Hong Kong public health system since the SARS outbreak last year.

        "The Hong Kong Government has committed to invest about $3 billion (328.6m euro) in capital works and other related works such as manpower training, system enhancement.

       "Pending approval from the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council, we have earmarked $234 million (25m euro) to develop an electronic based medical surveillance system - Communicable Disease Information System (CDIS) - to provide a common platform for the HA and DH to capture real time syndromic data and speed up the process in contact tracing.

        "In this trip to Sweden and Finland, our team has a more thorough and updated understanding on how IT can help to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our delivery of health care services, that will help shape our CDIS," she said.

        The Hong Kong team and Finnish officials also discussed information exchange and networking for the prevention and control of communicable diseases.

        The City of Stockholm, Sweden, had earlier invited Hong Kong to participate in the Global Forum - Networking and Exhibition on May 12 (local time) to share its medical surveillance experience with participants from 107 countries. The event had set the stage for the prize presentation ceremony of the prestigious Stockholm Challenge Award on May 13, which is one of the top international honours in IT applications.

        Apart from taking part in the award events, Mrs Yau and her team met Swedish health officials and experts in public health to exchange views on system-based medical surveillance and various ways to apply IT to enhance the delivery of health care services to the public.

        Mrs Yau said the visit to Stockholm had been fruitful noting that the city would be the headquarters of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) following the European Union's adoption of a proposal on March 31 to clear the final hurdle for its set up. The ECDC is on course to become operation in 2005.

        Mrs Yau will leave for Amsterdam, the Netherlands, tomorrow (May 16) to continue her fact-finding trip. In Amsterdam and The Hague, she will meet senior officials responsible for food safety and control.

        She will return to Hong Kong On May 19.

Ends/Saturday, May 15, 2004

NNNN