Chongqing - What once took days of repeated tests in Chongqing can now be completed with a single click. When Ms. Wang from Changshou District visited the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University for severe headaches, she expected another round of CTs, blood work, and ECGs, dreading the time and expense.

But instead, her neurologist pulled up all her previous results instantly on his computer. Within seconds, her full medical records from her local hospital appeared, sparing her the cost, time, and discomfort of repeating the same procedures.

Thanks to Chongqing’s citywide medical test mutual recognition system, launched in October 2024, this remarkable shift in patient care became possible. The system enables diagnostic results from one hospital to be directly recognized and used by others.

The system is built on the concept of "One Cloud, One Platform, One Application." The cloud serves as a central hub for storing diagnostic data, while the platform establishes uniform standards to ensure that hospitals can share and trust each other's information. The application puts this into practice, enabling doctors to retrieve high-resolution patient records from any public hospital in the city with just a click.

The system spares patients repeated tests and extra costs by storing diagnostic data in a unified cloud. With consistent standards and instant access through one application, records follow patients seamlessly across hospitals.

A doctor attends to a patient at a hospital in Chongqing. (Photo/Chongqing Daily)

Since its launch, the system has achieved full coverage among all secondary and above public hospitals, expanded the number of mutually recognized test items to 222, and logged about 17.7 million queries. More than 1.46 million cross-institution recognitions have been completed, saving patients an estimated 320 million yuan (about 44 million U.S. dollars) in medical expenses.

The initiative extends beyond Chongqing. Through a partnership with the People’s Hospital of Chamdo in Tibet, medical imaging data is now linked to Chongqing’s cloud center. Tibetan patients referred to Chongqing hospitals no longer need to repeat costly and time-consuming tests. Their records appear instantly, bringing new convenience to remote, high-altitude communities.

This progress reflects a wider global movement toward integrated healthcare systems. Around the world, countries are striving to make medical records interoperable so that information can follow patients across institutions and borders. 

In Europe, the eHealth Digital Service Infrastructure enables cross-border access to medical prescriptions and records, with Finland and Estonia leading the way. In the United States, the Carequality Interoperability Framework facilitates the secure exchange of more than 45 million clinical documents every month. Singapore has also adopted a National Electronic Health Record system that gives doctors island-wide access to consolidated patient histories.

As nations worldwide look for ways to connect health records across institutions and borders, Chongqing’s experience stands out as a powerful example. Its unified, top-down approach has delivered rapid, large-scale results, offering lessons of value well beyond China.