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Health

As at 31 December, around 1.35 million residents and over 2,000 organisations, including all 12 private hospitals and other healthcare providers such as private clinics, elderly homes and welfare groups, had registered for eHRSS, in addition to the Hospital Authority and the Department of Health. About 51,000 accounts had been created for healthcare professionals, comprising about 13,600 for doctors, 31,500 for nurses, 600 for dentists and 5,300 for other professionals specified under the Electronic Health Record Sharing System Ordinance.

Genomic Medicine

In December 2019, the Steering Committee on Genomic Medicine submitted a report to the government on strategies for developing genomic medicine in Hong Kong. In May 2020, the Hong Kong Genome Institute was set up to implement the Hong Kong Genome Project, a project to sequence 40,000 to 50,000 genomes. The pilot phase will focus on patients with undiagnosed disorders and hereditary cancers and their family members. The sequencing results may help the diagnosis or clinical management of participants, and the resulting genome database will facilitate relevant scientific research.

Chinese Medicine

The government plans to establish a Chinese Medicine Hospital in Hong Kong, promoting service development, education and training, innovation and research. In September, the government invited tenders for the hospital's operation, with the target for the hospital to commence services by phases from the second quarter of 2025. The $500 million Chinese Medicine Development Fund, established in mid-2019, has launched subsidy programmes for various purposes, including to support training in Chinese medicine, to enhance good manufacturing practices for proprietary Chinese medicines, to improve clinic facilities, for scientific research and for promotional activities.

At the district level, 18 Chinese Medicine Clinics cum Training and Research Centres promote the development of Chinese medicine and provide training placements for graduates of local Chinese medicine bachelor's degree programmes under a tripartite collaboration model involving the Hospital Authority, NGOs and local universities. In March, the government launched a subsidised Chinese medicine outpatient service providing an annual quota of around 620,000 attendances for general consultation, acupuncture and bone setting/tui na services. The fee for each attendance in respect of each category is $120. There were about 1.05 million attendances in 2020. Private Chinese medicine clinics record about eight million attendances each year.

Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine Pilot Programme

The Hospital Authority is implementing the Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine (ICWM) Pilot Programme at designated public hospitals to gain experience in developing, and explore the feasibility of providing, Chinese medicine inpatient services, and facilitate the development of Chinese medicine training. Seven public hospitals are participating in the pilot programme, which covers stroke, low back pain, shoulder and neck pain and cancer palliative care. From March, the government reduced the additional daily fee for ICWM inpatient services from $200 to $120.

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