**********************************************************
More than 3,000 experts and professionals from local, the Mainland and international healthcare sector are attending the two-day Hospital Authority Convention 2007 today and tomorrow (May 7 and 8) to share innovative ideas for improvement of the health of the community and also help shape the direction of future healthcare development.
The main theme of this year's convention is "Innovating for Health", which is underpinned by the following sub-themes:
- Modern and Sustainable Health System
- Innovative Models of Care Delivery
- Enhanced Competencies of Health Workforce
- Quality Assurance and Improved Outcomes
- Community Engagement in Health
The Hospital Authority Convention 2007 was officially opened this morning (May 7) by the Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Health, Dr Ma Xiaowei, and the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Accompanying the vice-minister and the secretary at the opening ceremony were authority chairman Mr Anthony Wu and the chief executive, Mr Shane Solomon.
In his welcoming address, Mr Wu echoed the theme of the convention and remarked that innovation was what made a healthcare system tick. "With Hong Kong clearly at a crossroads, the Hospital Authority must keep modernising and innovating to contribute to a sustainable way forward," he said.
Mr Wu also said that the authority's doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and other staff were its most valuable asset. "At the Hospital Authority, we deliver quality healthcare through teamwork. Staff partner at all levels of work and together play a vital and much appreciated role in guarding our population's health."
"I trust that with the assistance of the Health and Medical Development Advisory Committee, the HKSAR Government has put forward a shared vision - to ensure that the community will continue to enjoy a high quality healthcare service which is sustainable, affordable and accessible to all."
In delivering his Keynote Speech "2020 Two", the authority's chief executive, Mr Solomon expressed the authority's appreciation to the Government for increasing the operating funding by 2.4% as well as an additional $500 million for equipment modernisation this year.
Mr Solomon then looked ahead to the year 2020 to see how people would manage their health when most of the authority's patients were elderly and had multiple chronic conditions such as respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental illness.
"As the patient population ages further, integrating the care delivered by multiple specialties will become more important. Instead of going to different Hospital Authority specialists to have their multiple chronic conditions treated, Hong Kong citizens will increasingly rely on their family doctor who knows them well and can help them manage their inter-related health issues."
"Patients in the year 2020 will know what to expect from the authority. Our 'core service offering' will be well known by all Hospital Authority citizens and it will include pledges on waiting times, proven new technologies and treatments, be of high quality and also well founded in evidence. Additional choices beyond the authority's 'core service offering' will be available but this will require patient co-payment," Mr Solomon said.
He also envisaged that by 2020, all Hong Kong citizens would have their own electronic health record (eHR) telling them about their past vaccinations, the results of previous health screening tests, their allergies, pathology and digital X-ray results. It would also chart key aspects of their health to point to warning signs, such as blood pressure, weight, and cholesterol levels.
"In summary, the 2020 patient will be much more in control of their health, and have a wider range of service options from which to choose."
To put the Hospital Authority on the right path towards 2020, Mr Solomon said that there were five priority strategies in the next two years:
- clinical innovation leading to more choices for patients,
- creating the informed patient through the eHR,
- gaining a consensus on the authority's core service offering,
- creating a People Plan for the Hospital Authority, and
- introducing a new Hospital Authority internal resource allocation system.
"If patients are to take control of their health, they need new options - they need the Hospital Authority to introduce clinical innovations," Mr Solomon said. In the area of clinical innovation, he saw a number of high priority areas for further innovation. They included new programmes that kept people out of hospital through secondary prevention; expansion of community mental health services; new models of primary health care; building up of sub-acute services; more public-private initiatives that offer more choices; and use of electronic service delivery.
In the second strategy, he believed that in order to be more self-reliant and to exercise a wider range of choices, patients would need to have access to their own patient information. "Hong Kong has a unique opportunity to be the first in the world to offer its whole population access to their own eHR (Electronic Health Record). We need to fast track the next stage of the Hospital Authority's Clinical Management System (CMS III) so that the wealth of patient information can be easily adapted to the wider Hong Kong environment.
"The authority's Electronic Patient Record Pilot Project needs to move quickly to demonstrate that the private sector can safely access patient data, with tight privacy controls."
Mr Solomon is also mindful of the need to gain public consensus about the authority's "core service offering".
"What should the Hospital Authority do? How should it position itself? It cannot do everything that is possible in modern medicine. We make decisions every day - whether at Head Office or in the ward - about how we will ration our resources, and so what will be our 'core service offering' to the Hong Kong community?"
"Decisions about the authority's core service offering should be made openly, engaging the wider community. These decisions take the form of what will be 'self-financing' or how long someone will have to wait for a service - our performance pledge to the community."
Mr Solomon also highlighted the need for a People Plan for the Hospital Authority. The priority action areas were reducing doctors' working hours; addressing nurse workloads; proposing career progression for key professional groups; introducing flexible employment term; building up leaders at all levels of the authority; among others.
"Reasonable workloads can only be achieved if the authority's internal resource allocation system funds the services actually delivered by our staff - the number and type of patients treated. Money should follow the patient in the Hospital Authority," Mr Solomon said.
"This moves away from the historical rollover resource allocation method, with all its unfairness and poor incentives for efficiency. So this year we will commence work on a new internal resource allocation model for the authority which will be based on activity adjusted for patient case mix."
In marching towards the year 2020, Mr Solomon concluded with his hope for the Hospital Authority to support and inform patients as partners, offer more treatment choices, and have the financial incentives right while not compromising on quality.
Ends/Monday, May 7, 2007
Issued at HKT 17:05
NNNN