What is the status of electronic health records?
About 90 percent of physicians in private practice use electronic health records (EHRs) to help with billing, documentation,
tracking of laboratory data, and quality assurance. In some regions, about 60 percent of physicians
use online services to transmit billing information and documentation from disease management programs. A
unique patient identifier does not exist, as data safety concerns represent a significant obstacle. Nevertheless,
many hospitals have implemented EHRs, to varying degrees. The greatest problem with implementing a systemwide
EHR is the incompatibility of the different programs within and between hospitals, and between hospitals
and ambulatory care. A national strategy to create an electronic medical chip card was implemented in October 2011 and by January 2013 about 70 percent of SHI enrollees had received the new card. Owing to difficulties
of data security, the electronic medical chip card contains the same data as the card before (the insured
person’s name, address, date of birth and health insurance fund, along with details of insurance coverage and
the person’s status regarding supplementary charges).