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SINGAPORE – A new Bill which paves the way to mandate the sharing of patients’ health information among healthcare providers was introduced in Parliament on Nov 5 after two years of delay.

Under the Health Information Bill (HIB), sharing these details will mostly be done through a central repository called the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) system.

The aim is to reduce repeating medical tests or giving wrong prescriptions for the benefit of all patients here, and ensure health information is kept updated, accurate and accessible by healthcare providers.

Since 2011, NEHR stores the health data of patients in public hospitals and polyclinics, including diagnoses, medications, allergies and laboratory reports.

If passed, the Bill will require all healthcare service providers licensed under the Healthcare Services Act – including all nine private hospitals and general practitioner clinics – to also contribute data to the NEHR.

Care providers approved by the Ministry of Health (MOH), such as community pharmacists, will also need to contribute data to the NEHR.

Only authorised healthcare professionals who are directly providing care to the patient, or performing specific medical, dental, psychiatric or psychological examinations to the patient, could access the patient’s NEHR records.

Under the Bill, healthcare providers must also have measures to protect patients’ health information through timely updates of their systems and software, as well as equip staff with practices to safeguard cyber security.

Hospitals and clinics will need to report cyber-security incidents and data breaches. If the breach involves more than 500 individuals, the healthcare provider will be required to notify the affected i...