Patients with Chronic Diseases Who Travel: Need for Global Access to Timely Health Care Data

Henrik Toft Sørensen1,2 1Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital and Aarhus University, Aarhus N, DK-8200, Denmark; 2Clinical Excellence Research Center, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USACorrespondence: Henrik Toft Sørensen, Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University, Olof Palmes Allé 43-45, Aarhus N, DK-8200, Denmark, Email hts@clin.au.dkAbstract: Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, international travel is expected to increase in the future. Before the pandemic, the United Nations World Tourism Organization estimated that by 2030 nearly 2 billion people would travel internationally each year. This raises the risk of unavailable medical record information if a complication or an emergency occurs in another country (particularly problematic for the growing numbers of older travelers with multimorbidity). We propose that an international medical record containing current health information be developed to allay this additional risk of traveling.Keywords: e-health, epidemiology, global health, medical records, travel medicine