Press Releases
SFH on eHealth record system and human swine flu vaccine
Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session
after attending the opening ceremony of eHealth Forum 2009 today (October
8):
Reporter: (About eHealth record system)
Secretary for Food and Health: Today we are launching the initiation of a
partnership driving initiative, that is asking for any suggestions and
proposals from the health care as well as the IT sectors. Whoever is
interested in being a partner of this project will be able to show the
interest. We have a set of documents that they can actually take home. And
they can also consider whether they would like to give any information to
us. We will gather this as soon as possible. And we will be able to,
perhaps, initiate some partnership projects in the coming months.
Reporter: (About eHealth record system)
Secretary for Food and Health: We are trying to use the Hong Kong ID card as
an authorising vehicle for any individual who would like to authorise the
use of the medical records by their health care providers. So this is
something that we hope we can actually start piloting. We will start
piloting next year, perhaps in certain areas, but the whole system will not
be in place until 2013.
Reporter: (How to ensure the privacy)
Secretary for Food and Health: We will do consultation in 2010 regarding the
privacy issue. We also look at the legal side as well to see when and how we
can legislate the protection of privacy in health care records.
Reporter: (Human swine flu vaccine)
Secretary for Food and Health: We are processing the tender right now. We
are confident that we are able to get the available vaccine by the end of
the year, so that we can do the vaccination programme before the start of
the so-called "winter surge".
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Thursday, October 8, 2009
Issued at HKT 15:35
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