A Family Care Service Opportunity After Proxy Access to Medical Records Opens

A paper-based process has moved to digital verification

Ministry of Health and Welfare Notice No. 2026-187 took effect on September 11, 2026. The revision requires the Medical Record Access Support System (본인진료기록열람지원시스템) to verify eligibility and relationships electronically when a family member or legal representative uses it for a registered person with a developmental disability or a person with severe dementia covered by the National Health Insurance Service’s special calculation scheme.

Whether a person qualifies as having severe dementia is checked through National Health Insurance Service data. Developmental-disability registration is checked through the Social Security Information System. Household relationships in resident registration, family relationships, and guardianship relationships are also checked through electronic data from resident registration, family relationship registration, and guardianship registration systems.

When these linked checks are completed successfully, users do not need to separately submit relationship documents such as a resident registration certificate, family relationship certificate, or guardianship registration certificate. Under these conditions, the number of relationship-verification documents collected from multiple institutions effectively falls to zero. This does not mean that every other step, such as identity verification or consent, has disappeared.

This change applies to proxy access within the government system. Existing procedures may still apply when requesting a copy of medical records directly at a hospital desk, including patient consent forms, letters of authorization, identification, and evidence required for the reason of the request.

The Korea Health Information Service, the public body that operates national health-information infrastructure, said that 1,363 medical institutions were connected to the Health Information Highway in 2026, and that all 47 tertiary general hospitals completed connection in 2025. Major hospitals are broadly included, but this does not mean that every record from every hospital nationwide is available. The actual app screens, access scope, consent method, and process when automatic verification fails under the September 11 revision still need to be confirmed.

The family member who sees the record becomes the buying decision-maker

Consider a 52-year-old daughter in Seoul who works full time and cares for her mother with severe dementia. Her mother visits neurology and internal medicine clinics, while the daughter’s sibling and a home-care worker share care duties.

Today, she calls each hospital’s administrative office before a visit to ask which documents are needed. She finds prescriptions and test papers from other hospitals and puts them in her bag. After an appointment, she writes medication names and the next appointment date again in the family chat room, then separately calls the care worker to explain changed dosage instructions.

The same information is copied repeatedly across apps, paper, and chat rooms. Time also goes into checking whether a family relationship certificate has the right issue date, whether a letter of authorization is needed, and which hospital records are missing.

If digital verification is reflected in the live service interface, the first step changes. Instead of preparing relationship documents, the daughter may move through a flow that verifies her identity, checks her relationship to her mother, and lets her view records from connected hospitals in one place.

But the work after viewing a record still remains with people. Asking clinicians why a medication changed, understanding test results, deciding who will accompany the patient to the next appointment, and considering the mother’s wishes and preferences cannot be solved by automatic verification alone.

This gives the primary caregiver, who can now practically handle the records, a reason to spend part of existing care spending on record organization, schedule management, and family sharing.

This person evaluates a service not by its number of features, but by whether they missed a medication change, repeated the same question at a hospital, or clearly divided care responsibilities with a sibling. The product should therefore be sold as a tool that reduces today’s tasks, not as an app that displays medical records. It also should not depend on a new budget from hospitals or public agencies.

Other countries are addressing what comes after permission settings

Finland’s MyKanta lets a guardian log in with their own identity to view the records of a minor or an authorized adult and handle tasks such as prescription renewals. A guardian relationship for a minor is verified through population data, while adults use national electronic authorization.

The adult authorization feature began in 2021. In 2025, 3.25 million people used MyKanta 41.1 million times. About 4.2 million of those uses were on behalf of another person, or roughly one in every ten uses. The system does not charge individuals a separate fee for proxy use.

The United Kingdom’s NHS App lets family members and caregivers switch from their own account to the person’s view to handle appointments, repeat prescriptions, and record access. A local general practice reviews consent and safety, then sets permissions for each person. The information shown varies by permission.

An online application pilot ran at 68 practices and received about 12,000 applications. NHS England said that the existing paper-based setup process usually took at least 30 minutes. Its early focus was reducing application time and staff work rather than clinical outcomes.

Australia’s My Health Record allows a patient to nominate a family member or caregiver and grant one of three access levels: general, restricted, or full access. The patient can change or revoke access, and users are not charged separately for proxy access.

But in a 2024 caregiver survey, only 25.3% of respondents said they actually accessed the person’s record. Another 29.3% said they did not know how to use it, while 27.9% did not know they could apply. This shows that even a free national service may go unused if first-time registration and guidance are not resolved.

Four small products to test now

1. A proxy-access navigator

• What it does: A service that distinguishes between viewing records through the government system and obtaining copies at a hospital desk, then explains the required steps in order.
• Who uses it: Adult children trying to view the records of a parent with severe dementia for the first time, or legal representatives of a sibling with a registered developmental disability.
• Why now: The electronically verified group now exists, but people are likely to confuse system access with hospital-specific copy-issuance procedures during the early rollout.
• First screen: Ask users to choose between “View in the government system” and “Get a copy from the hospital,” then ask about the patient’s eligibility, family relationship, and desired record.

2. A tool that turns medical records into today’s tasks

• What it does: When users add records they downloaded, the service extracts medication changes, upcoming appointments, and test results to check, turning them into a review list.
• Who uses it: Siblings who take turns accompanying a parent with dementia to appointments across multiple hospitals.
• Why now: Even if proxy access becomes easier, families still have to read long records and turn them into care actions.
• First screen: Include a “Add new record” button and three sections: “Medications, appointments, and questions to check today.” State that medical decisions should be confirmed with the treating clinician.

3. A secure sharing space for each family

• What it does: A service that lets users share medical summaries they saved with family and care contacts by item, while setting viewing periods and keeping an access log.
• Who uses it: A primary caregiver who wants to show different information to siblings, home-care workers, and day-care center staff.
• Why now: As official proxy access expands, the risk of sending a patient’s password or an entire record file through a chat room may grow with it.
• First screen: Show “Who can see what?” by person. Manage only sharing of user-created summaries, not the right to access medical records themselves.

4. A guidance-note generator for hospital administrative desks

• What it does: A tool that helps staff generate consistent procedures and guidance wording after selecting the patient’s situation and request method.
• Who uses it: Administrative teams or telephone-support leads at connected medical institutions that receive both proxy-access and record-copy requests.
• Why now: Immediately after implementation, staff need to accurately distinguish between cases where automatic verification works and cases where the existing document process still applies.
• First screen: Offer three enquiry types—“System proxy access,” “Hospital record copy,” and “Automatic verification failed”—along with items to check before answering.

One thing to check in the next 30 minutes

Call 1666-7598, the enquiry line for My Health Record, and ask where an adult family member of a registered person with a developmental disability or a person with severe dementia can begin proxy registration after September 11. If the common registration process without relationship documents, the available records, and the next step after automatic verification failure are all clearly explained, consider a record-organization service. If the answer varies by hospital, it may be worth building the proxy-access navigator first.

Why this matters where you are

Korea’s change is specifically tied to government-linked eligibility and relationship databases, so the same verification path may not exist in your market. You can check whether local record-access systems reduce paperwork for caregivers and whether they help people complete the work that follows record access. If they do not, medication changes, appointments, and care handoffs are concrete places to start.