Chief Executive’s Report
2015 marked the 25th Anniversary of Hospital Authority (HA). Progress of Hong Kong’s public hospital services since the era of Hospital Services Department is highly encouraging, most notably in service quality, efficiency and satisfaction of patients and the community at large. The daunting challenges of ageing population, technology advancement, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, potential health threat posed by communicable diseases such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Zika virus infection, have continued to place tremendous burden on the public healthcare service. Rising expectation of the general public towards the public healthcare system has also induced HA to drive for further improvements and excellence. Leveraging on our firm foundation established, we rise above to take advantage of every challenge and strive to maintain high quality healthcare services.
To meet the demands in hospital services with pressing needs, we rolled out various measures to increase service capacity and accessibility. We enhanced the access of target patients to episodic care by adding 110,000 general outpatient clinic (GOPC) quota in the year. The Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department Support Session Programme was extended to all 17 A&E Departments to reduce workload.
Last year, we continued our effort in improving ancillary support to pharmacy services. The pharmacy workforce was strengthened and accessibility to services was enhanced with round-the-clock pharmacy services extended to North District Hospital, and extension of weekday service by two hours in Shatin Hospital, Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital and Haven of Hope Hospital.
In managing escalating service demand, we further enhanced operation efficiency with different service models through collaborations with our counterparts. Our Patient Empowerment Programme (PEP) in collaboration with non-governmental organisations continued to support 14,000 chronic disease patients. The pilot Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programmes of cataract surgeries, primary care service and radiological investigation service benefitted over 6,500 patients.
HA strives for a higher standard of medical safety and professionalism. We phased out the reuse of single use devices according to clinical prioritisation. We also set up designated teams to coordinate hospital accreditation programme in 10 hospitals. We leveraged the application of technology and developed mobile application BookHA for Gynecology patients to submit applications for booking new case appointment as a pilot. We are further developing the App to introduce to other specialties so as to bring greater convenience to the general public in making public specialist outpatient clinic (SOPC) appointment.
Human resource is our most valuable asset. To alleviate pressure faced by frontline staff, we continued to strengthen workforce by recruiting 400 doctors, 2,041 nurses and 617 allied health professionals in the year. Overseas training scholarships were offered to 209 healthcare professionals. Training subsidies were also provided to healthcare professionals to align with corporate development priority areas to build staff competency.
Hong Kong SAR Government and HA are close partners in healthcare services, and HA provided support in various Government-led public healthcare initiatives. HA actively helped in the development of the Electronic Health Record (eHR) Sharing System in the past few years and the System formally commenced operation in March 2016, providing an important platform for health record sharing between public and private healthcare organisations with patients’ consent. We also assisted the Government in managing the lead in drinking water incident, setting up blood taking centres in 11 HA hospitals with paediatric units which together provided over 5,600 blood lead level (BLL) screenings. Follow-up management was also provided for individuals with higher-than-normal BLL.
In October last year, HA proactively put forward the Action Plan for implementing the recommendations of the Report of the Steering Committee on Review of Hospital Authority which was announced in July 2015. The Action Plan outlined over 100 action items to be implemented in the coming three years. The Authority has since then been diligently following up on the various implementation plans, including key focuses in refining the cluster boundary of Kowloon Central Cluster and Kowloon West Cluster with a view to reducing cross-cluster utilisation of services and optimising vertical integration of services to ensure continuity of care; alleviating known gaps in Kowloon East, New Territories East and New Territories West Clusters through additional top-up funding; enhancing structured development and training opportunities for healthcare professionals; and working on service access and capacity issues, just to name a few.
Through allocating resource, we enhanced manpower support and resources in pressure areas to reduce workload of our staff, retain talents and maintain staff morale. Four staff forums were organised to listen to staff’s views last year. With continuous communication with staff and other stakeholders, we stayed closely with the pulse of their comments and concerns to engage support and will continue to do so. At this 25th year, it is an opportune time for HA to consolidate our experience in the past and get prepared for challenges ahead.
Senior appointments in 2015-16 included Dr Beatrice Cheng as Hospital Chief Executive (HCE) of Ruttonjee & Tang Shiu Kin Hospitals, Cheshire Home, Chung Hom Kok and Tung Wah Eastern Hospital; Dr Chung Kin-lai as HCE of North District Hospital; and Dr Man Chi-yin as HCE of Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital & Tai Po Hospital. Mr Robert James Burns took up the post as Chief Internal Auditor of Group Internal Audit at HA Head Office.
My heartfelt thanks go to all our committed staff for serving the community with profound endurance and professionalism. I also wish to express my gratitude to the Government for its unswerving policy and funding support. HA will continue to improve facilities and services in public hospitals and clinics around the territory and ensure efficient use of the designated funding. We will consolidate our fundamental strengths, and map out our long-term goal and direction in fulfilling the mission of safeguarding the health of the community.
PY Leung
Chief Executive