SINGAPORE: All nine private hospitals in Singapore will soon share health records of their patients on a national platform to ensure better continuity of care across healthcare providers, the Ministry of Health announced on Saturday (Nov 9).
The National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) system, which was introduced in 2011, serves as a centralised repository for essential health data such as diagnoses, medications, allergies and laboratory reports.
It reduces the need for patients to repeat their medical history to various healthcare providers, or undergo repeat tests.
Public hospitals, which handle 90 per cent of acute hospital workload in Singapore, are already using NEHR, along with primary care providers such as polyclinics and general practitioner clinics on the Healthier SG initiative.
“All private hospitals have now also fully committed to work with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Synapxe to ensure that their hospital management systems are ready to be integrated with NEHR and contribute health information in 2025,” the ministry said.
Synapxe is the national health tech agency.
To safeguard patient data, healthcare providers contributing to or accessing NEHR must meet a “robust” set of cybersecurity and data security requirements, said MOH.
“This includes measures to protect health information through frequent and timely updates of systems and software, equipping staff with cyber-hygiene practices, as well as mandatory reporting of cybersecurity incidents and data breaches,” the ministry added.
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