Press Releases
Government launches Electronic Health Record Engagement Initiative
The engagement and participation of private healthcare and information
technology (IT) service providers are essential to the success in building
up a territory-wide patient-oriented electronic health record (eHR) sharing
system in Hong Kong.
The Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, made the above remarks
today (October 8), marking the launch of the first stage of the eHR
Engagement Initiative (EEI) invitation exercise, a major government step to
push ahead the development of the eHR sharing system.
Dr Chow said a population-wide and territory-wide eHR system would serve as
a fundamental infrastructure in underpinning healthcare transformation,
removing the boundaries between different healthcare professions providing
different levels of care in different sectors.
"With the development of eHR, patients' health information can be shared
instantaneously which will in turn enable the provision of the appropriate
and most timely treatments to our patients. Also, eHR reduces errors and
unplanned admissions of patients and saves documentation time by medical
professionals, which will in turn enhance the efficiency and quality of
healthcare to patients.
"Our vision is to have an eHR sharing platform ready by 2013-14 for
connection with all public and private hospitals, and to have electronic
medical and patient record systems and other health information systems
available in the market for private doctors, clinics and other health
services providers to connect to the eHR sharing platform," Dr Chow said.
While the Government would take a leading role and provide the necessary
capital investment to achieve the goal, Dr Chow said it was also imperative
to involve and engage all stakeholders in the private and non-government
sectors, especially in the early stage of the development.
"I am confident that through the EEI exercise, we will be able to receive
new and innovative proposals from the stakeholders on possible partnership
projects that will facilitate deployment of electronic medical/patient
record systems in the private healthcare sector and contribute to the
development of the eHR sharing system," he said.
The EEI invitation exercise will be conducted in two stages. Feedback and
preliminary proposals from the private and non-government healthcare sector
received during the first-stage exercise will assist the Government to
formulate appropriate strategy to further promote eHR development and
sharing in the private healthcare sector. Healthcare providers can
collaborate with the IT service vendors to submit joint proposals.
Interested healthcare providers are invited to submit their interim
proposals by December 29 for interim review and the final proposals by
February 9, 2010, for final assessment. It is expected that the recommended
partnership projects will be implemented in the first half of next year.
Taking into account the partnership projects proposed by the private
healthcare stakeholders, the Government will launch the second stage
invitation exercise to engage IT professional bodies and private IT vendors
to further explore the possible partnerships in developing healthcare IT
solutions contributing to the development of eHR sharing.
The Food and Health Bureau will hold two EEI stakeholder forums on October
15 and 22 to brief all stakeholders on the details of the invitation
exercise. The EEI invitation document and registration form for stakeholder
forums are available for download from the eHealth Record Office website
http://www.ehealth.gov.hk .
Ends/Thursday, October 8, 2009
Issued at HKT 12:33
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