Hong Kong – New service points for opening eHealth accounts to facilitate access to government health services by citizens

     The Health Bureau announced today (January 5) the provision of eHealth account opening services at 18 designated post offices to assist members of the public to register early as eHealth users. The new measure aims to enable citizens in accessing various government health services while the Government is gradually extending the requirement of having an eHealth account to use these services starting this year.
      
     At present, some 80 per cent of Hong Kong citizens are eHealth users. The Government calls on citizens who have not yet registered with eHealth to take action as early as possible in order to continue enjoying various government health services. As a further facilitation, the Government has designated one post office in each of the 18 districts across Hong Kong (see Annex) to provide eHealth account opening service. Citizens simply need to bring their identity documents to the post office. The staff will verify their identity on-site and assist them to complete the registration for the account-opening process. The Government is also planning to extend the eHealth account-opening service to more post offices in the future.
      
     Apart from the new registration channel through post offices, citizens may also continue to make use of multiple existing channels to open eHealth accounts:

• Register online and open accounts in one go upon identity verification through the “iAM Smart” mobile application;
• Register on the eHealth website and complete identity verification by presenting identity documents at the 63 Electronic Health Record (eHR) Registration Centres of the Hospital Authority (HA) or the Department of Health (DH), the eight eHealth mobile registration counters, about 4 800 service locations of private healthcare providers and the eHR Registration Office located at Kowloon Bay in person for opening an eHealth account;
• Visit the above locations direct in person with identity documents for registration and opening eHealth accounts upon identity verification; and
• Visit various District Health Centres (DHCs) to register as members and open eHealth accounts.

     Methods for account opening, addresses and operating hours of service points are detailed on the eHealth website. Since November last year, a default consent arrangement was made in the system to register participating citizens of government-subsidised vaccination schemes with eHealth as a streamlined registration procedure.
      
     The Government will roll out the eHealth+ as announced in the 2023 Policy Address. One of the main directions is to centralise the storage of digital health records from both public and private sectors and to integrate different healthcare protocols through a personalised eHealth account for individual citizens. It is already a current requirement for citizens who receive services at the DHCs, enrol in the Chronic Disease Co-Care Pilot Scheme launched in mid-November last year, or participate in the Public Private Partnership Programmes of the DH and the HA to use eHealth. To foster the development of primary healthcare services, the Government will gradually extend the arrangement for use of eHealth from this year to other government health services, including government-subsidised vaccination schemes and the Elderly Health Care Voucher Scheme. Another major future development of the eHealth+ system is to support various cross-boundary medical collaboration initiatives within the Greater Bay Area including the Elderly Health Care Voucher Greater Bay Area Pilot Scheme. Measures will be introduced later to enable citizens to bring their health records to seek medical treatment across the boundary.
      
     The Government has been striving to optimise the eHealth mobile application with a view to enabling members of the public to have better control and management of their health records. A number of functions have been added to allow citizens to record and manage their personal health data, such as accessing records of government-subsidised vaccination schemes, making appointments at selected clinics under the DH and the HA, checking the balance of the Elderly Health Care Voucher, and managing and integrating blood pressure and blood glucose indexes for healthcare personnel’s reference.
      
     For other details about eHealth, members of the public may visit the website or call the hotline at 3467 6300.