SCHSA：”Tele-health Link” Telephone and Electronic Elderly Health Services (2008-2011) 2

In 2008-2011, ZeShan Foundation supported the Tele-health Link program of the Senior Citizen Home Safety Association (SCHSA), which provided a range of telephone and electronic health services to SCHSA’s elderly members in Hong Kong East and Kowloon East. The program is an example of community-based elderly health services to enable ageing in place, showcasing effective cross-sector collaboration between the public health and non-governmental social services sectos as well as innovative use of technology.

n collaboration with the Hospital Authority, a hotline manned by registered nurses was set up. Calls were made to elderly members recently discharged from hospital to monitor their progress of recovery, remind them to take medications, and follow up on other matters. The elderly and their carers also had access to healthcare advice through the hotline. More than 330,000 calls were made in three years. Through the hotline, the program aimed to enable active ageing and reduce hospitalization of the elderly.

The project also received matching fund from the Partnerships Fund for the Disadvantaged to expand its service to a city-wide operation. To evaluate the effectiveness of the program, a study was conducted by the Sau Po Center on Ageing of the University of Hong Kong in March 2011, showing very satisfactory feedback from users.

An IT system was also established to facilitate the transmission of electronic medical records to hospital emergency wards. The system enabled doctors and nurses to access the medical records of SCHSA members to enable efficient medical intervention. The project won a Gold Award in a competition organized by the government for itsinnovative use of information technology.