Information Infrastructure

An eHR sharing system provides an information infrastructure for healthcare providers in both the public and private healthcare sectors, with informed and express consent of the patient and proper authorisation for access to the system, to share the eHR they keep on the patient with other healthcare providers and to retrieve the eHR of the patient shared by other healthcare providers.

Much more than an IT Project

eHR sharing system is much more than an IT project, and requires addressing not only technical issues concerning the implementation of IT systems, but more importantly legal, privacy and security issues including ownership, access and copyrights of patient records and the safeguarding of data privacy and security, and institutional issues including governance of the emerging eHR sharing infrastructure holding and transferring a vast amount of health data of the majority of the population.

The Secretary for Food and Health established in July 2007 the Steering Committee on eHR Sharing (the Steering Committee) comprising healthcare professionals from both the public and private sectors. The eHR programme reflects a consensus on key issues reached among healthcare professionals from both the public and private sectors in the Steering Committee.