The Ministry for Health has implemented a new cross-border eHealth service for Maltese citizens who travel to other European Union countries, the government said in a statement.

Citizens can now have a summary of their health data transferred electronically from Malta to the country they are in, should they need emergency medical treatment while travelling abroad.

If the citizen consents to it, authorised doctors in countries that offer this service will be able to access important details kept by the Government of Malta health service, such as allergies, diagnoses, procedures and medications. 

This information can help the doctor abroad give more appropriate treatment, avoid certain clinical risks (e.g. in case of allergies) and overcome language barriers, as the data will be made available in the language of the receiving country.

This new service is presently available between Malta and Luxembourg, therefore Maltese citizens receiving emergency medical treatment in Luxembourg can have their patient summaries retrieved in Luxembourg.  Other EU countries will soon offer this eHealth service as well, starting with Croatia, the Czech Republic and Portugal.

Doctors at Mater Dei Hospital will also be able to retrieve patient summaries of visitors from other EU countries, should they need emergency medical treatment in Malta, if their country is one of those that can send the information.

Information about this service is available online at www.cbeh.gov.mt, and may also be requested at [email protected].

This new service has been implemented by the Ministry in collaboration with the European Commission and with other EU countries that are using the eHealth Digital Service Infrastructure of the European Union.  The project has been co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union.