In face of the rapidly ageing population, the demand for elderly and medical services has been rising in recent years. To cope with the ever-increasing service demand, the Hospital Authority’s annual expenditure is expected to continue to increase while it struggles with manpower shortage. Thus, the financial sustainability of HA is greatly challenged. To cope with the fiscal challenges and demand for healthcare services of a greying population, Hong Kong must reform its healthcare system.
Dr CC Lam advocates a paradigm shift of the healthcare system and promotes developing primary healthcare service models that can enhance medical-social collaboration. He will talk about examples of medical-social collaboration, including District Health Centre, the recently proposed model for district-based medical-social collaboration, and strategies that can foster cross-sectoral engagement to enable the elderly to age healthily and stay in the community as long as possible. Through the joint efforts of healthcare and social service providers, synergy can be generated to deliver efficient and holistic care.
