How to take Chinese medical records abroad

Start by separating two routes. A patient can obtain a copy in China and then carry or transmit it. A hospital can send records directly to an overseas doctor or platform. The second route creates additional duties for the hospital and is not something a patient can demand through any email address.

What you can request

Patients and properly authorized representatives can apply to copy the permitted medical record. Electronic and paper records have equal effect. Ask for stamped reports, discharge material, laboratory and pathology reports, and usable imaging files. This right concerns copies; it does not transfer the hospital’s original database, original chart or physical specimen.

If the hospital sends data abroad

Health information is sensitive personal information. Direct overseas transmission requires the hospital to address notice, separate consent, impact assessment and security. CAC Order No. 16 may exempt some procedural filing routes, but it does not remove those baseline duties. “Needed for continuing care” is not an automatic exemption written into every case.

Different material, different route

• Reports: request complete, sealed or verifiable copies and a translation if the recipient needs one.
• Imaging: ask for DICOM data plus the report and confirm that the receiving doctor can open it.
• Pathology: reports, digital images and physical slides or blocks are different; physical material needs an institutional route.
• Genetic or genomic data: ask the hospital or laboratory compliance team before transfer. Ordinary clinical and imaging data are not automatically human genetic-resource information, but genomic material needs separate analysis.

Before discharge, obtain the records list, identity requirements, authorization form, file format, delivery method and estimated time in writing.

Official sources

• NHC: medical-record management rules
• Personal Information Protection Law
• CAC Order No. 16
• Human genetic resources implementing rules

Written by Paperwork First. General information, not legal, medical, customs, insurance or aviation advice. Confirm the current rule with the hospital, authority, insurer or operating airline before acting.

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