Letters | Hong Kong e-health portal would be more useful if more doctors used it

In 2019, on average, each doctor only used the health record sharing system about 32 times. Given that the system is severely underused, the government must investigate why and issue clear usage guidelines to public hospitals

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Medical staff at on duty at a Hong Kong hospital, as people queue to be tested during a Covid-19 outbreak in July. The number of city patients enrolled in the government’s Electronic Health Record Sharing System has reached 1.34 million. Photo: Winson Wong

Published: 6:30am, 23 Dec 2020Updated: 6:30am, 23 Dec 2020

Launched in 2016, the Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHRSS) enables medical professionals to access patients’ records from both public hospitals and private health care providers. The number of patients enrolled in the system has so far reached 1.34 million, thanks to the requirements for participants in various health programmes such as patient empowerment programmes and public-private partnership programmes to sign up.

Yet, considering the limited number of health care professionals who register for and use eHRSS, the Food and Health Bureau must simplify the application procedures and issue clear guidelines to the medical community to take advantage of the e-health infrastructure.

Among the 109,615 health care professionals in Hong Kong, about 50,480 have registered to access patients’ eHRSS records. More than 80 per cent of the registrants are working in public hospitals and clinics.

In order to join eHRSS, private health care professionals have to fill out a paper registration form and provide supporting documents such as practising certificates in person at the eHRSS office. To attract more private practitioners, the Food and Health Bureau should allow applicants to submit a simplified form online without having to provide supporting documents. The bureau can then verify the applicants’ personal information and credentials with their respective professional organisations and employers.

The government should also require all private health care service providers taking part in the Health Care Voucher Scheme to register for eHRSS.

Then secretary for food and health Ko Wing-man attends the launch of the Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHRSS) at the Hong Kong government headquarters in March 2016. Photo: David Wong

In 2019, eHRSS was accessed some 656,140 times, including 436,180 times by 13,520 doctors. Hence, on average, each doctor only used eHRSS about 32 times that year. Given that the system is severely underused by health care professionals, the government must investigate why doctors have little incentive to use eHRSS and issue clear guidelines to public hospital staff on when the system should be accessed to better serve patients.