Southeast Asia is digitising health records. Making them portable is the harder problem

Southeast Asia is advancing the digitisation of health records, but ensuring that these records remain usable across different systems and borders poses a more significant challenge. In 2026, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, and the Temasek Foundation initiated a three-year programme to transition ASEAN Member States from paper-based health records to secure, interoperable digital health wallets.

The initiative intends to employ global standards like HL7 FHIR and the International Patient Summary to facilitate consistent health information exchange.

This shift signifies a broader transformation in the healthcare sector, with digital health becoming an integral part of healthcare infrastructure rather than a standalone project. As of 2026, 129 WHO Member States have adopted national digital health strategies, with at least 80 per cent of the South-East Asia region having drafted or completed such strategies, with interoperability being a key focus area.

However, simply digitising health records is no longer sufficient to differentiate healthtech solutions. The more pressing issue is making those records usable outside the original system that created them. While transferring data technically might be achievable, ensuring the second system understands this information correctly is another hurdle.

Healthcare data not only carries a structured format but also a significant amount of meaning. Different systems may use varying terminologies, units, and clinical concepts, making consistent interpretation crucial.

Healthcare interoperability is often framed as an API problem, but healthcare data's interpretation is equally vital. For instance, a laboratory observation recorded in one hospital might use international terminology, while another may use a local code. Similarly, medication names, units, and clinical concepts can differ significantly, which can lead to data being accepted by the receiving system without being usable.

This discrepancy is particularly critical when health information moves across regional and international boundaries. Healthcare interoperability, therefore, extends beyond technical capabilities such as FHIR-based data exchange. It also involves addressing challenges related to patient identity, consent, terminology, data quality, security, access permissions, and the clinical context of records.

Moreover, Southeast Asia’s healthcare landscape is diverse, with varying digital maturity, healthcare delivery models, public and private sector involvement, regulations, and existing infrastructure. This regional diversity means that interoperability cannot be achieved by standardising every participant to a single software platform. A more feasible objective is to enable different systems to communicate through shared standards while preserving the meaning, trust, and context of the exchanged information.

For healthtech innovators, addressing interoperability should be treated as an essential aspect of product architecture from the outset rather than a post-integration task. A scalable healthtech platform should separate core product logic from external systems, clearly defining boundaries for identity, consent, terminology mapping, API management, auditability, and data transformation.

The aim is not to predict every future integration but to design a product that avoids requiring a complete rebuild for every new integration.