Authors (including presenting author) :
Yip MK, Chan HW, Cheung SCA, Tang YC, Pang SM, Shum HY, Ching SYC, Chan YH, Chak WL
Affiliation :
Renal Unit, Department of Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Introduction :
In general patients suffering from Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) will receive renal replacement therapy, however some patients will opt for conservative management in view of advanced age and multiple comorbidities. Renal Palliative Care (RPC) service provides medical treatment, nursing education, symptoms management and psychosocial support to these patients and their caregivers through a multi-disciplinary approach. RPC service was commenced in QEH in March 2009 and a pilot project on “Online Tele-Nursing Consultation” Service for RPC patients was launched in July 2020, which enabled RPC Team to assess patients during the COVID pandemic. Clinical conditions of patients were assessed, and appropriate advice and nursing education would be provided by using the Zoom Cloud Meetings platform. We believed this practice could reduce patients’ need to travel to hospital, reduce their risk of COVID infection and enable clinician to optimize patients’ symptoms control.
Objectives :
The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the “Online Tele-Nursing Consultation” Service in terms of symptom assessment, symptom management and patients’ or caregivers’ satisfaction of the service.
Methodology :
The effectiveness of this service was evaluated through a self-administered 5-scale rating questionnaire. All service users were invited to complete the questionnaire.
Result & Outcome :
Total 16 sessions of “Online Tele-Nursing Consultation” Service for 9 patients were conducted from July 2020 to December 2020. The median consultative session was 2 (range 1-5). The mean age was 84.2 with male predominant (55.6%). The questionnaire response rate was 100%. All patients/caregivers (100%) agreed that “Online Tele-Nursing Consultation” Service could reduce patients’ inconvenience to travel back to hospital. 87.5% of the caregivers agreed that the service could alleviate caregivers’ stress from bringing patients back to hospital and assist them to understand the treatment plan. 81.3% of the caregivers agreed the service could help improving patients’ quality of life and provided accurate symptom assessment. 93.8% of the caregivers agreed the service offered effective symptom management. Overall, 93.8% caregivers were satisfied with the “Online Tele-Nursing Consultation” Service.
In conclusion, “Online Tele-Nursing Consultation” Service offers an innovative and effective care delivery model to support RPC patients in the community, especially for those frail patients and during COVID pandemic.
