Bridging between Tseung Kwan O Hospital (TKOH) and the community, the Patient & Community Relations Department plays a salient role in making TKOH a genuine community hospital. The Department has a wide range of functions, covering Patient Relations, Community Relations, Media Relations and Health Resources Centre.

Managing the expectations of both internal and external stakeholders is nothing easy especially when faced with ambiguous and uncertain situations. However we strongly believe that successes could only be achieved through effective communication, trust and close working relations with every body working as a team. It is these values within our Department that drive us forward and help us sail through trouble waters. Internally, the Department's functions are getting more diversified with new developments. The Patient & Community Relations Department has taken up the important role to manage the Advanced Incident Reporting System ever since its first roll out in the Hospital and we have successfully helped colleagues to handle critical incidents and undesirable events. Through these exercises, our Department has contributed significantly to the hospital's risk management initiatives as well as improving quality standards in hospital practices.

After working for all these years, we have secured a steadfast working relationship with our community partners who have walked with us all along and supported us at times of joy and crisis. A number of new community projects have been implemented successfully with their participations in the recently years, namely

• Post-discharge Patient Care Project - a volunteer project to support the needy patients after discharged from the hospital;
• Woman Health Ambassadors -a health education program for women in our locality, to equip them with health knowledge for keeping healthy families, to promulgate the health message as well as to encourage active participation in volunteer service in the community;
• Patient and Carer Support Groups - to strengthen the individual patient self care ability and better disease understanding for both the chronic patients and their carers.

In the past decade, the Department has successfully bridged the gap between the Hospital and the community, creating a community oriented service model. We will continue to work in line with the new Hospital Authority Mission - "Helping People Stay Healthy" in the days to come!