Authors (including presenting author) :
Ku BPS(1), Tse AWS(1), Cheng HL(1), Wong JWL(1), Man JKY(1), Chan JKY(1), Pang JYW(1), Cheung NT(1), Cai KY(1), Hui HL(1), Lam JCK(1), Yeung BCY(1), Yeung ZWC(2)
Affiliation :
(1) Information Technology and Health Informatics Division (2) Department of Ear, Nose and Throat, TKOH
Introduction :
With the advent of new digital technologies and prevalence of mobile phones, health care is no longer bounded by the walls within hospital and clinic. Sustainable health care means to keep Hong Kong citizens healthy in community. In alignment with the strategic direction of the Hospital Authority, we attempted to build an app under the umbrella of HA Go app platform with aims to empower patient for manage own health in community; to provide educational material in user friendly format to foster better understand own health; and to dispatch clinical documents in a timely manner to enable patient better informed of clinical information.
Objectives :
-To build an app, MyHealth App, that is user friendly to elderly and user suffering from chronic illness -To incorporate features inside the mini app to accomplish the aforementioned aims of keeping citizen healthy in community
Methodology :
The idea of building the app has been thoroughly discussed and deliberated in various platforms including HA Go Steering Group, Patient Clinical App Task Force and HA Go Informatics Program Office. During the Covid-19 outbreak, a small scale pilot of sharing education materials in electronic format to patients in TKOH ENT had been promising and received positive feedback from both patients and clinical staff. With the encouraging pilot, the development of the app was commenced and the app is named MyHealth. There are three main features included in this app, which are My Measurement; My Health Info; and My Record. 1. My Measurement: Patients suffering from chronic illness are usually required to regularly record health figures. My Measurement functions as an electronic note pad for easy recording of vital signs. The aim is to empower patient to self-monitor and understand own health. The measurement items should include the most common vital signs for chronic illness and act as one stop measurement to support all other disease apps. 2. My Health Info: My Health Info can replace the conventional paper based pamphlets that are given daily. Elderly and illiterate patients frequently pointed out that information in paper and text format are difficult to comprehend. For information requiring patient to carry out caring procedure, multimedia format is more favorable to enable better understanding. 3. My Record: Important clinical documents or data issued to patient can be incorporated into this function for patient’s reference. As such, patient can access to these documents for information and reference in a timely manner.
Result & Outcome :
1. My Measurement: Altogether ten types of measurement are enabled that are Body Weight and BMI, BP, Pulse, Blood Glucose, Body Temperature, Pain, Dizziness, Uterine Contraction Timer and Peritoneal Dialysis. Trend Chart and History functions are built to enable easy mastering of own health progress and facilitate presentation to clinician during follow up. More measurement items will be added, including Peritoneal Dialysis. Import of measurement data from IoT devices are also enabled. 2. My Health Info: Education materials can be prescribed to patients in forms of e-Pamphlet, Video or Sound Track. The multimedia formats enable elderly to better understand the content of the education material. Tele Information prescription has been enabled to Patient Support Call Centre, A&E and ENT. More health education will be added in next phase of development. 3. My Record: Initally, three types of clinical documents are included for sharing: Patient Discharge Information summary, GCRS Reminder and Referral Letter. Eight types of laboratory results and Sick Leave Certificate are added for share in later development. MyHealth App was launched in HA Go on 26 Oct 2021. Up till 31 Aug 2022. the utilization figures were as follow: -My Measurement: 741,444 measurements were recorded -My Record: 1,021,613 documents were accessed -My Health Info: 1,135 patients were prescribed with education materials.
