Press Releases
Government promotes electronic health record sharing (with photos)
The Food and Health Bureau today (December 11) granted $2.95 million to the
Hong Kong Medical Association (HKMA), under the Public-Private Electronic
Health Record Sharing Project, to sponsor the association to upgrade its
clinic management system. This is a move to further promote the
collaboration between the public and private healthcare sectors in
developing a territory-wide electronic health record (eHR) sharing system.
At the project launch ceremony, the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York
Chow, said the private sector currently provided 70% of primary healthcare
services in Hong Kong.
"The participation and support of private doctors are paramount in the
development of an eHR sharing system covering the whole territory," he said.
"We hope to provide assistance to non-profit-making professional bodies
through the Public-Private Electronic Health Record Sharing Project with a
view to developing an integrated and open-source health record system for
use by the private doctors free of charge, for connection to the
Government's eHR sharing platform.
"The clinic management system jointly developed by HKMA and the information
technology sector is a generic system which can be used by private doctors
and connected to the forthcoming Government's eHR sharing platform. The
system can further be integrated with the Department of Health's notifiable
diseases report system in future. This can help enhance the efficiency and
accuracy of reporting of notifiable diseases.
"HKMA will upgrade its system in the coming year to tie in with the
Government's various subsidised healthcare schemes and organise practical
training courses so that more private doctors can learn to use the system,"
Dr Chow said.
"I hope that HKMA will encourage more private doctors to use this system to
improve clinic management and provide more comprehensive and quality
healthcare services to the public through sharing of health records. This
will pave the way for the future eHR sharing across the territory."
The clinic management system - HKMA Clinic Management System 3.0 - developed
by HKMA. was launched in August. All registered private medical
practitioners can use the system without any charges permanently. It is the
target of the association to have 500 private clinics adopting the system at
the end of next year. By the end of 2011, the number of such clinics will be
increased to 1,000 which is about 17% of the total number of private clinics
in Hong Kong.
Under the Public-Private Electronic Health Record Sharing Project, HKMA will
provide training lectures for 500 private doctors on eHR system as well as
technical support for the doctors to use the clinic management system.
HKMA will also integrate its system with the existing electronic platform
operated by the Government for the elderly health care voucher scheme and
various vaccination subsidy schemes to facilitate private doctors to join
these schemes.
HKMA will further develop its system to allow participating private doctors
to exchange clinical information among themselves more effectively and
simplify the procedures to report notifiable diseases to the Department of
Health.
Ends/Friday, December 11, 2009
Issued at HKT 14:25
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