Authors (including presenting author) :
Man YL, Lau SP, Lau FCA
Affiliation :
Occupational Therapy Department, Pok Oi Hospital
Introduction :
In view of the increasing healthcare demand, tele-rehabilitation has been advocated as one of the patient service delivery model in recent decade. The impacts of COVID-19 pandemic inevitably speed up the adoption and utilization of telecare service in patient workflow as well as service enhancement in occupational therapy service delivery. In order to understand the service effectiveness and anticipated rooms of improvement, a patient satisfaction survey was conducted to collect patient or carers’ feedback on the quality of out-patient telecare service in Occupational Therapy Department (OTOPD) of Pok Oi Hospital.
Objectives :
1.To investigate how telecare services should be adopted and modified from patient’s perspective
2.To monitor the effectiveness and quality of current practice in telecare service for continuous service improvement
Methodology :
A questionnaire with 10 items on three domains, including 1) Provision and arrangement of service 2) Effectiveness of service delivery, and 3) Overall impression and comparison with in-person care was adopted.
The survey was conducted in out-patient setting over an 8-week period. Data was collected face-to-face during the post-telecare follow-up or collected through phone follow-up.
Result & Outcome :
A total of 66 surveys were received with 77.6% response rate. The mean age of patient was 56.87. Majority of the respondents were satisfied with OTOPD telecare service. Over 95% of respondents were satisfied with the content and arrangement of telecare service. Over 95% respondents agreed that telecare could provide timely medical assistance, monitor rehabilitation progress and/or comfort patient’s worries especially in time of COVID-19 pandemic where infection control and social distancing were of utmost importance. Some respondents reported that telecare was particularly feasible for those having stable medical condition, post-onset of 1 year and have already received occupational therapy. On the other hand, over 85% of respondents expressed that direct face-to-face in-person care could not be replaced by telecare. Patients also raised their concerns on anticipated technical problems encountered by elderly patient in using smartphone on their own throughout the whole telecare service as well as the limitation of telecare in physical and hand-on assessment and interventions e.g. hand function assessment.
