Use of WhatsApp by Health Institutions to Communicate Medical Information and Records to Patients

Ms Joan Pereira asked 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.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: 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.