bridgeborders

In today’s interconnected world, the globalisation of healthcare presents both opportunities and challenges, particularly for countries like Australia. Large population movements through immigration, international education, medical tourism, and refugee resettlement mean that patients often arrive with complex medical histories and fragmented health records from their countries of origin. This situation highlights the need for seamless integration of international health data into Australia’s electronic health record (EHR) systems. Achieving this integration is vital to ensuring continuity of care, improving patient outcomes, and reducing financial and administrative burdens on healthcare providers. However, this process is complicated by legal, technical, and cultural barriers. Electronic health record systems capture essential patient data such as medical histories, diagnoses, treatments, medications, allergies, and test results. These systems have improved healthcare delivery by enhancing information accessibility, strengthening care coordination, and supporting patient confidentiality. Their adoption in hospitals has grown rapidly, reflecting their potential to improve healthcare quality and efficiency. Yet, despite these benefits, challenges remain. Healthcare professionals face increasing workloads as they manage and input data across multiple platforms, and the complexity only grows when attempting to integrate international health records into domestic systems. This research aims to investigate these challenges in depth and develop evidence-based strategies to optimise the integration of international health data into Australian EHR systems.