Hong Kong’s healthcare system has long been acknowledged for the professionalism of its practitioners, high-quality services, structured governance, and sound regulatory regime. Much of this regulation, an article in ejinsight.com writes, however, has been focused on the public health system. In relation to the private sector, the government has brought forward two important regulations aimed at the private sector – the Private Healthcare Facilities (PHFs) Bill and the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS). The aim of the PHFs Bill and the VHIS is to establish greater transparency and clearer minimum standards in the private healthcare sector, and both are critical to a well-functioning market. The authors of the article suggest tranparency is essential to manage costs and improve quality. Hong Kong lags behind comparable developed markets in relation to tranparency in healthcare costs and quality. Countries such as Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Australia are making progress in publishing standardized and comparable data for consumers. The authors identify three core areas of transparency in Hong Kong’s healthcare that need development – financial data, quality data, and real-life patient experience data.
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