Authors (including presenting author) :
Chan KN, Wong CL, Ho PC, Tsang WY, Sha KY
Affiliation :
Department of Medicine & Geriatric, United Christian Hospital
Introduction :
Coronarvirus disease 2019 (CoVID-19) has become a global pandemic. It involved worldwide, including HKSAR. Elderly with chronic diseases are more vulnerable to coronarvirus and have a higher mortality rate. As vaccine is not available yet, keep the elderly at home is the best way to protect them from CoVID-19. The elderly also fears of going to clinic which may hinder them in receiving medical consultation they need. High risk elderly is the target client of Integrated Care Discharged Scheme (ICDS). Their medical condition are complex and co-morbidities. Those elderly need close disease monitoring. However, the elderly is usually with inadequate technology support. Telecare with the help of nurse case manager can fulfill the various needs of the elderly in this pandemic.
Objectives :
Tele medical consultation with case manager home visit will be provided to the high-risk elderly with change of medical condition. The telecare can reduce the frequency of the elderly of attending SOPD in order to minimize the chance of cross infection in COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, it can provide timely medical consultation for the high risk elderly in order to have early medical assessment and interventions after immediately discharge.
Methodology :
Arranged tele medical consultation together with case manager home visit. Case manager provided technology support, physical assessment and post education to the elderly.
Result & Outcome :
The Telecare program started from May 2020. Preliminary result was collected from May 2020 to July 2020. Total 6 episodes of Tele medical consultation was conducted. The average age of the elderly is 80.2. The number of diagnosis ranged from 5 to 7. The pre and post 3-months emergency admission was compared. There are significant reduced in the emergency admission (t=6.325, p=0.001). The tele consultation included medical consultation, medications titration and symptom assessment. All the cases required medication prescription and/or titration. Case manager will follow the signs and symptoms respectively.
Telecare can help in reduce the risk of infection in COVID-19 pandemic and help in the disease management. It is worth to further extend and expand in order to cope with our new-normal.
