Authors (including presenting author) :
Lam YHR(1), Luk KHJ(1), Wong LCI (2), Lee CHV (3), Lau YHH (4), Hui ELE (5), Mo SLS(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Patient Resource Centre, Queen Mary Hospital, (2) Community & Volunteer Services Department, The Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital, (3) Elderly Health Resource Centre, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Fung Yiu King Hospital, (4) Patient Resource Centre, Grantham Hospital, (5) Patient Resource Centre, Tung Wah Hospital
Introduction :
Traditional social support focusing on face to face contact doesn’t work effectively under COVID-19 pandemic since maintaining social distance is the key measure in disease prevention. Caregiver Support Network (CSN) is a medical social collaboration project in which Patient Resource Centres (PRC) and 4 NGOs in HKWC built cohesive network to support patients and their caregivers through systematic case identification and multi-dimensional community support. Transforming the conventional interventions to digital support strategies helps to manage the challenge.
Objectives :
To empower needy patients & caregivers on illness management and network them to community services for long term support through multi-dimensional intervention strategies using digital technology.
Methodology :
A need survey for 112 caregivers and a focus group on caregiver stress were conducted to develop the CSN service model in 2019. Systematic case identification, stratification of social needs and multi-dimensional support are the core elements of the project. Since no visitation policy was implemented in most of the hospitals during COVID 19 pandemic, proactive phone contact, service hotline and online platform “Facebook” were used to provide timely support to target patients and their caregivers. E-Caregiver Resource Guide consisting of the latest community resources was distributed to HKWC patients and their caregivers through PRCs and medical social workers quarterly. Descriptive statistics including no. of “views” and “share” in Facebook posts and satisfaction survey of online empowerment program were taken as indicators for service evaluation in digital care platform. Through information exchange and resource sharing platform in Facebook, patients can obtain the latest information on service provision in the community during pandemic and be supported individually.
Result & Outcome :
- Around 1500 followers joined the Facebook page of the project during Jan –Dec 2020. They attended the online Caregiver Academy for learning the latest knowledge on hospital service, disease management and community supportive services. The views of posts in this digital platform ranged from 300 to 230000. Given no visitation in most of the community care premises, patients and caregivers can visualize the environment and services of those home based and day care services through this platform. Around 200 patients with dementia, cognitive impairment and COPD were proactively identified and supported in the project. 17 NGOs with 200 attendees also joined the online group training to equip their staff on infection control measure while serving elders in the community.
- Co-creation of health and social resources sharing network and dissemination of resource information to target patients through digital technology helps connecting patients beyond hospital care timely.
