Hong Kong's plan to build an e-health system has been slowed by the difficulty in gathering information from general practitioners, Permanent Secretary for Health and Welfare Sandra Lee Suk-yee said on Wednesday, the South China Morning Post reports. Information sharing efforts have been hampered by privacy and access concerns, not technology, according to Lee.
The e-health plan would include citywide electronic health records, Lee said.
Lee, speaking at a seminar to launch Chinese University's think-tank Systems for Health, said "We are very keen to develop e-health, and the (Hospital Authority) has a very good model to build on." However, Lee said that she wants to "hear and engage the private sector." E-health is just one of the issues the government is looking at as part of its health reform efforts, according to Lee.
Sian Griffiths, director of Chinese University's School of Public Health and former co-chair of the SARS Expert Committee, said a lot of information on health policy is available, "[b]ut we don't coordinate it." He added, "The challenge really is how to weld it together" (Benitez, South China Morning Post, 1/18).