The cross-boundary sharing of medical data between the Macao Special Administrative Region and Hengqin Island in Zhuhai will enable Macao patients to enjoy medical services more conveniently and promote rules alignment across the region, officials and residents said.

The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University Hengqin Hospital (FAHGMUHH) in the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin officially joined Macao’s electronic health record platform, or eHR, on Tuesday, becoming the first medical institution in Guangdong province to be able to access the platform.

With the addition, 10 medical facilities in Macao and Hengqin now support cross-boundary medical data exchange.

Macao residents can access their medical records from consultations in both Macao and Hengqin via the government-backed Macao One Account platform, enhancing the convenience of seeking medical care across the boundary.  

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The cross-boundary flow of medical data marks a crucial step in promoting the “soft connectivity” of medical services between Hengqin and Macao, said Feng Fangdan, director of Hengqin’s Livelihood Affairs Bureau.

“The number of Macao residents that receive treatment in Hengqin’s public healthcare institutions has been increasing significantly since the establishment of the cooperation zone,” she said. “As of August, they had made more than 70,000 visits.”

The bureau will further expand cross-boundary medical services to align with those in Macao, attract more high-quality medical resources to Hengqin and extend such services to Macao residents, Feng added.

Lo Iek-long, director of the Health Bureau of Macao, said the inclusion of the mainland hospital further expands the areas of medical cooperation between the two regions.

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Macao’s Conde S. Januário Hospital and FAHGMUHH jointly set up a specialist outpatient clinic last year and established a family medicine training center in May.

“With the launch of cross-boundary medical data transfer, cooperation between the two places has expanded from specialist medical services and talent training to medical data sharing. This signifies that medical cooperation has entered a new stage featuring both services and data connectivity,” Lo said.

“The development will also make it more convenient for Macao residents to seek medical treatment on the mainland,” he added.

The system allows doctors from both regions to access the health records of Macao patients and review their medical treatment information in both places, helping reduce repeated examinations and enable patients to receive more convenient medical services.

To ensure data security, medical data held by FAHGMUHH can only be uploaded to the eHR platform with the consent of Macao patients.

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Meanwhile, patients seeking treatment at FAHGMUHH need to scan a QR code provided by the institution or generate a one-time verification code through Macao One Account and confirm their consent before mainland doctors can access their health records.

All medical data of Macao residents, including personal information, consultation histories, test results and medical reports, are stored at the Macao SAR government’s cloud computing center.

“The service offers Macao residents an extra medical option. With such convenience, I believe more people from Macao will consider seeing doctors on the mainland,” a Macao university student surnamed Chen said.

As of the end of 2025, more than 30,000 Macao residents were working or living in Hengqin, according to official statistics. The number of Macao-funded enterprises in the cooperation zone hit 7,600.

Contact the writer at sally@chinadailyhk.com