Health Information Bill passed to establish framework for the safe collection and sharing of health information
28 January 2026
On 12 January 2026, the Health Information Bill (“Bill”) was passed in Parliament. The Bill will govern the sharing of key health information across Singapore’s healthcare ecosystem for better coordinated care. This article provides a brief overview of the Bill as provided in the press release published by the Ministry of Health (“MOH”).
Implementation timeline
To ensure healthcare providers have sufficient time to familiarise themselves with the Bill’s requirements, and to strengthen their cybersecurity and data security posture, MOH intends for the Bill to take effect from early 2027.
Requirement for healthcare providers to share key health information of patients on NEHR
Given Singapore’s rapidly ageing population alongside increasing life expectancy, the centre of gravity of healthcare has been shifting away from acute hospitals towards the community, with more healthcare services delivered in the vicinity of patients’ homes.
Ensuring care is coordinated across settings is important and the National Electronic Health Record system (“NEHR”) was developed to ensure that each healthcare provider has access to a consistent set of patient information. NEHR has enabled patient summary records to be shared across the entire public healthcare system. However, certain segments of healthcare providers are still not fully on NEHR, e.g. private specialist clinics, clinical and radiological laboratories, and dental clinics. While they are a minority of all healthcare providers, such gaps can risk medication errors, delayed treatment, and duplicate tests and procedures.
The Bill addresses these remaining gaps by making it a requirement for all licensed healthcare providers to share key health information of patients on NEHR. This will include allergies, vaccinations, diagnoses, medications, laboratory test results, radiological images and discharge summaries. The Bill will also provide for the sharing of non-NEHR health information to facilitate community health initiatives and community-based care.
Safeguards governing NEHR access
The Bill also introduces legislative safeguards to complement existing technical controls, such as regular audits to flag inappropriate access. In general, NEHR access is for patient care purposes only, and only healthcare providers and healthcare professionals whom patients are seeking care from will be able to access the patient’s NEHR information. This includes doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and allied health professionals. Access for employment or insurance purposes is prohibited, except for a specified list of medical examinations required or permitted under written law.
Patients’ key health information will be contributed to NEHR and, by default, will be accessible by their healthcare providers to support continuity of care across healthcare settings. Individuals will be able to monitor access to their NEHR information via the HealthHub application and report any unauthorised access to MOH. Patients may place Access Restrictions through HealthHub to allow only select healthcare providers to view their NEHR information.
When an Access Restriction is placed, a subset of information comprising allergies and vaccination information will remain accessible to healthcare providers to reduce the risk of inappropriate prescriptions or immunisation when patients visit a new healthcare provider. Further, in the event of medical emergencies, doctors will be able to activate a “break glass” feature, so that they may access an individual’s NEHR despite the Access Restriction.
Sharing of Non-NEHR health information for community-based care
Currently, the Agency for Integrated Care already shares data with community care providers to enable them to engage and provide befriending services or care to vulnerable seniors. The Bill will provide an additional basis for the sharing of health information to better support national health programmes and initiatives, enabling proactive support for Singaporeans who may benefit from interventions or community health services.
Protecting health information
Healthcare providers that contribute to and access the NEHR, and entities allowed to share and receive non-NEHR health information, will be required to meet cybersecurity and data security requirements to protect health information. These requirements ensure that healthcare providers and relevant entities implement appropriate technical and organisational safeguards for the proper storage, access, use, and sharing of health information, and notify MOH of confirmed cybersecurity incidents and data breaches in a timely manner.
Comment
Whilst the passing of the Bill is a much-welcomed development, its implementation will raise important practical issues relevant to both patients and healthcare professional and providers.
With the advent of mandatory contribution of health information to the NEHR, patients may be expected to be concerned about inappropriate access to their health information, especially sensitive health information such as that concerning mental health, sexual and reproductive health, and genetic conditions. As such, both legislative and technical safeguards governing NEHR access will need to be duly respected by healthcare professionals and providers in practice, and robustly enforced by the authorities, in order that patients have confidence in the system and are not deterred from seeking healthcare by the knowledge that contribution of their health information to the NEHR is mandatory.
At the same time, concerns remain on the parts of healthcare professionals and providers, including the need for clarity as to how the availability of vast amounts of health information in the NEHR may impact a clinician’s exercise of professional judgment in deciding when to access the NEHR, and how much health information and medical history must be reviewed in order to discharge the duty of care. Although teething problems will be inevitable, MOH has indicated its intention to implement a range of measures to support healthcare professionals and providers, and it is hoped that this will in due course help to facilitate a smooth transition to the new regime.
Reference materials
The following materials are available on the Parliament website www.parliament.gov.sg and MOH website www.moh.gov.sg: