When we travel abroad as a tourist, business traveller, exchange student or regular cross-border commuter, we rarely think about healthcare. Yet, when we do find ourselves seeking a health professional (physician, hospital, healthcare centre or pharmacist) abroad, it is often for sudden or unexpected health problems that require urgent or even emergency healthcare. Therefore, it is important to be informed about the existing cross-border health services.

Common challenges when seeking healthcare abroad

In addition to the obvious language barriers you may face, without your documented medical history (medical reports, vaccination records, laboratory results, etc.) your attending health professional may also have difficulties in determining the correct treatment for you. This in turn may have a negative effect on the quality of your healthcare treatment. A cross-border electronic healthcare record system (including Patient Summaries) can help eliminate these problems and greatly improve the quality of healthcare abroad. Together with electronic Prescriptions (ePrescriptions) - if they are available in in your country and the country you are visiting (see the list of pilot sites here) such a system also allows you to have prescriptions dispensed abroad, so that you will not have to worry about running out of essential medication, even if you are away from your home country for a longer period of time.