168 Health
to the elderly aged 70 or above as partial subsidy for their use of private primary healthcare service in their neighbourhood community.
Up to the end of 2010, a total of 2 736 healthcare service providers with places. of practice located in 18 districts of Hong Kong had joined this scheme. More than 300 000 elderly people made voucher claims, constituting 45 per cent of eligible elderly people. Over 2 136 000 vouchers were claimed by eligible elderly people through more than 852 000 medical consultations. The Government reimbursed more than $100 million in total to the enrolled healthcare service providers for the claims transactions.
The Government has introduced since 2008 a number of vaccination schemes through the PPP. These included a childhood influenza vaccination subsidy scheme, a vaccination subsidy scheme for the elderly and a residential care home vaccination programme to increase the number of vaccination service providers and to give the public more choice of providers. The aim is to extend the service to more target groups to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
Developing Electronic Health Record (eHR) Sharing
The Government is conducting a Public-Private-Interface Electronic Patient Record Sharing pilot project to test the feasibility and gauge the public's acceptance of eHR sharing. The project enhances continuity of care for patients by enabling participating private healthcare providers and other registered institutions to view their patients' medical records kept at HA, subject to patients' consent.
By the end of 2010, more than 2 060 private doctors and healthcare providers of private healthcare organisations took part in the project. More than 124 700 patients also enrolled in the project. The Government has extended the project to 12 private hospitals and 42 other private or non-governmental organisations providing healthcare-related services (including their 270 residential care homes or centres).
The Government is also working with the public and private healthcare sectors, IT service providers and stakeholders to implement a 10-year programme to develop a territory-wide, patient-oriented, voluntary eHR sharing system. The whole programme is being developed in two stages. The objectives of the first stage development (2009-10 to 2013-14) are:
(i) to have the eHR sharing platform ready by 2013-14 for connection with
public and private hospitals;
(ii) to have electronic medical/patient record systems and other health information systems available in the market for private doctors, clinics and other healthcare service providers to connect to the eHR sharing platform; and
(iii) to formulate a legal framework for the eHR sharing system to protect data privacy and security prior to commissioning of the system. The second stage development (2014-15 to 2018-19) aims to expand the coverage of
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