Press Releases
Use of Whatsapp by Healthcare Institutions to Communicate Medical Information and Records to Patients
8 July 2019
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Ms Joan Pereira
MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC)
Question No. 1272
To ask the Minister for Health (a) whether any of our public health institutions use WhatsApp to communicate medical information and records to their patients; and (b) if so, what has been done to protect the patients' information in view of the recent WhatsApp security breach.
Written Answer
1 Public healthcare institutions do not allow their staff to use platforms such as Whatsapp to communicate sensitive medical information to patients. Instead, they are encouraged to do so at face-to-face consultations, and the Cluster CIOs have been asked to remind users of this. For selected medical information, patients can also log on to HealthHub via the secure Singpass platform to view the information.