Hong Kong health apps HA GO and eHealth remain separate despite merger calls
Hong Kong's health e-apps HA GO and eHealth will not merge, with health chief warning integration would create a 'big elephant'. Legislators disagree on the issue. eHealth now covers 87 per cent of the population.
The Hong Kong government has ruled out merging its two major health electronic applications, HA GO and eHealth, despite calls from some lawmakers for a single platform.
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau told the Legislative Council's Panel on Health Affairs that while the two platforms have interoperability functions, fully merging them would be impractical. He warned that integrating HA GO, which handles many service details, into eHealth would make the latter overly complex, turning it into a 'super invincible big elephant'.
Lawmaker Yeung Jeng-yee disagreed with the characterisation, arguing that government app 'iAM Smart' already successfully combines multiple platforms, representing a future trend. However, technology sector legislator Chiu Tat-kuen said HA GO and eHealth serve different functions and use different models, supporting the decision to keep them separate.
The Health Bureau reported that eHealth now has over 6.57 million registered users, covering more than 87 per cent of Hong Kong's population. The platform is connected to more than 4,800 major public and private healthcare institutions, with over 65,000 registered healthcare professionals. The number of electronic health records uploaded to eHealth by the private sector this year is expected to increase by more than 130 per cent compared to last year.
