1. eHealth is designed to provide an additional platform for sharing information of patients among healthcare providers (HCPs) and healthcare professionals (HCProfs). There is no difference in liability in the case of reading written medical records provided by other authorities or patients.
2. According to the Code of Practice for Using Electronic Health Record for Healthcare (COP) (Section 3.3), HCProfs shall exercise professional judgement to interpret the information on eHealth and to consider how much information shall be accessed for reference purposes.
3. Such judgement should be exercised on a case-by-case approach and based on the need for providing care to individual patient.

1. It is the duty of any eHR HCProf and professional judgement to access whether and how much information is required to be read from eHealth for their patients.
2. HCProfs shall judge on a case-by-case approach.
3. eHR is for reference purpose only.

1. The sharable scope of data at current stage to be uploaded and shared in eHealth is defined through a due process in consultation with relevant experts and stakeholders. Only information that is within the sharable scope, readily available and conforming to the standard requirements can be shared for the sake of patient care and safety.
2. Filtering information uploaded to the system according to patient's request is currently not available in eHealth.
3. In eHealth Stage 2, features to allow patients to request for restriction on the scope of sharing of their data will be explored and developed.

1. Access to eHealth is under stringent control.
2. Only authorised HCProfs with the patient's prior sharing consent are allowed to access eHealth.
3. Authorised HCProfs are allowed to access only records of patient-under-care and with need-to-know for the purpose of providing direct patient care.
4. This is explicitly put in the COP (issued by the Commissioner for the eHR (eHRC)) that "HCProfs shall exercise diligence of care and caution in explaining the content of information accessed through eHR to patients and / or guardian or relatives and not to use them for alleging challenges or criticism in whatever means to disparage or depreciate the professional skills, knowledge services or qualification of other HCProfs and / or HCPs". Similar spirit is noted in various Codes of Practices and Professional Code of Conducts issued by various HCProf boards and councils.

1. You should explain to the patients that the purpose of eHealth is for supporting direct patient care but not to retrieve information to challenge or comment the services provided by other HCProfs.
2. According to the COP (Section 3.4) and the Professional Conduct and medical ethics,
   1. It is inappropriate to use the information obtained from eHealth to allege challenges or criticism in whatever means to disparage or depreciate the professional skills, knowledge, services or qualification of other HCProfs and / or HCPs.
   2. HCProfs, however, are not prohibited from making fair and honest comments on another HCProf if the professional conduct or competence of him / her may be called into question.

1. If you identify an error in a patient's eHR that is not contributed by you, you should clarify with the patient and ask him / her to approach the HCP who has contributed such data to eHealth.
2. If you identify an error in a patient's eHR that you have provided to eHealth, you are advised to contact eHR Registration Office (RO) immediately.

1. No. Viewing of eHR is only allowed for HCProfs who have obtained patient's sharing consent for healthcare purpose.
2. The Government and the eHR Office only act as the platform owner and will not access patient's records unless under special circumstances in investigations, legal proceedings or related matters.

1. (1) Apart from HCProfs who can access eHRs in eHealth, patients can also view parts of their eHRs in eHealth, e.g. medications, appointments, allergy and vaccine records, through the eHealth App. For more information about the eHealth App, please visit the following link (app.ehealth.gov.hk).
2. Under Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486) (PDPO), patient (data subject or relevant person on his / her behalf) may enquire and request a copy of personal data kept in eHealth through Data Access Request (DAR).
3. Patient should be reminded to seek medical advice for interpreting information in his / her record.

1. It should be noted that according to PDPO, patient (data subject or relevant person on his / her behalf) may enquire and ask for a copy of personal data kept in eHealth DAR. The same principles apply to manual records or eHRs kept by any HCPs.
2. eHealth contains only those records that are in standardised format and within sharable scope.
3. In general, legal proceedings require detailed records kept locally by the HCPs concerned, for which the request for a copy should be through formal mechanism in accordance with the data access mechanism provided under the PDPO.

1. You should exercise professional judgement when assessing your patient's clinical condition and deciding the type of information you need to make reference to, such as medical records or other health information of your patient.
2. It is voluntary and free of charge for HCPs and patients to join eHealth. The Government and the Hospital Authority does not charge HCPs for using eHealth. Electronic Health Record Sharing System Ordinance (Cap. 625) (eHRSSO) also does not provide that an HCP can charge a patient for accessing / sharing his / her eHR in the course of providing healthcare.
3. It has come to our notice that codes of professional conduct / practice have been issued by boards and councils of healthcare professions for reference and compliance by the respective HCProfs. For example, we note that with regard to the charging of fees by doctors, the Code of Professional Conduct issued by the Medical Council of Hong Kong (MCHK) stipulates that the consultation fees of a doctor should be made known to patients on request, and a doctor should not charge or collect an excessive fee. In determining whether a fee is excessive, as we have been given to understand, MCHK will consider the difficulty, costs and special circumstances of the services performed and the time, skill and experience required; as well as the average fee customarily charged in Hong Kong for similar services, etc.

1. In general, HCPs shall upload the health data in their medical record systems to eHealth for sharing as soon as possible and reasonable after each episode of care.
2. The timeliness to process the data before it is shared to eHealth may be justified with various clinical reasons (e.g. quality check, authorisation of certain reports and processes required in completing the patients' records etc.) and technical reasons (e.g. data consolidation, retrieval, checking and packaging etc.).
3. Individual HCPs shall approach the eHR RO (Hotline: (852) 3467 6230) to discuss and agree on the arrangement for data uploading.

1. The requirement to share data is set out in the Conditions of Registration of HCPs in eHealth.
2. Most HCPs will continue to maintain their own medical record systems after the launch of eHealth. Not all the health information contained in the medical records kept by them will be uploaded and shared under eHealth. Only those data within the sharable scope for sharing will be shared to eHealth.
3. There is no obligation for HCPs to share their patients' record if they are not electronically readily available for sharing. However, registered HCPs with eMR system ready for providing data to eHealth shall provide all data within sharable scope according to a schedule as agreed with eHRC.
4. It is advisable for HCPs to consider implementing or upgrading their eMR systems for sharing. There are free eMR packages provided by the eHR Office available for private sectors to enable sharing of information with eHealth. The eHR Office also works with major vendors of clinic software to enhance their products to support data sharing with eHealth.

To promote transparency and respect patients' rights, the data categories that can be uploaded by HCP's eMR system will be published at the eHealth website.

Only limited and restricted downloading of patient's information such as Participant Master Index (e.g. name, identity document type and number, date of birth, sex) and allergy / adverse drug reaction data from eHealth to HCP is allowed.

The day-to-day clinic visit note is not shared in the current scope of data sharing in eHealth. The clinical note summary being shared refers mainly to discharge summary of an inpatient record upon discharge.

1. You should access the information of patients only when the patient is under your care.
2. You should judge the need to access the patient's information on case-by-case approach.
3. You should be aware that the patient may receive notification once his / her record is accessed.

1. You may request for emergency access to the patient's eHR only if the patient is unable to give sharing consent (e.g. unconscious) and also under the following circumstances in which the lack of access to the patient's eHR would likely:
   1. cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of the patient;
   2. cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of any other individual; or
   3. prejudice the carrying out of emergency rescue operations or provision of emergency relief services.
2. All access and use of eHR (including emergency access) in eHealth must be under proper authorisation and will be logged and subject to audit.

1. Before patient actually receives care e.g. before attendance or pre-admission, access to the patient's eHR is acceptable but shall be cautious. It is advisable to inform the patient in advance (e.g. upon appointment booking) about such possible access.
2. After patient having received care and having been discharged, it is acceptable to access the patient's eHR if it is indicated. It is also advisable to inform the patient in advance the possible access.
3. HCProf should be aware that the patient will receive notification for access to his / her eHR.

1. In general, you should make use of your own clinical records for writing up medical reports for patients. Information on eHealth should be used for reference only. Any information extracted from eHealth and included in a patient's medical report should be clearly referenced.
2. eHR is for reference purpose only and you shall exercise care in case you have to use information from eHealth for such reference.

Use of a patient's eHR for handling complaints should be handled with caution. Separate consent needs to be obtained from the patient, or his / her substitute decision maker (SDM), before any information in the patient's eHR is used or disclosed to third parties for handling a complaint. You should also note that the patient or his / her SDM will be sent a notification every time the patient's eHR is accessed.

No. According to COP (Section 3.4), the Professional Conduct and medical ethics, HCProfs shall not use information on eHealth for alleging challenges or criticism in whatever means to disparage or depreciate the professional skills, knowledge, services or qualification of other HCProfs and / or HCPs. However, if you suspect that certain information of the patient in eHealth may not be accurate, you should advise the patient to seek clarification with the HCPs contributing such information to eHealth.

You should inform patients to approach the eHR RO to get a copy of their personal health data stored in eHealth through the DAR under PDPO.

1. HCProfs shall ensure access to a patient's eHR complies with the "need-to-know" and "patient-under-care" principles.
2. Moreover, according to PDPO, you should not disclose to a third party any data without patient's consent, hence prior and express consent shall be obtained before disclosure of the clinical information of your patient.
3. HCProfs shall explain to the person requesting them that eHRSSO only allows access to the patient's eHR for permitted uses.

1. As required under the PDPO, information in patients' records should be collected on a reasonable basis and not in an excessive manner.
2. Reasonable caution should be exercised in handling personal information related to other individuals in patients' records.
3. HCProfs have the responsibility to exercise judgement on how much information of other individuals shall be documented in the patients' records, with the consent from the other individuals concerned sought as far as practicable and feasible.

1. You should clearly indicate the source of information, date / time of the information being accessed when copying information from eHealth to your own clinical records.
2. You should be aware that information printed out may be outdated and not comprehensive.
3. According to the COP (Section 2.5), you should ensure proper filing and record keeping of any printed health records of patients from eHealth. You should also act in accordance with the record management policies of your healthcare organisation.