In 2014, the Government engaged the Hospital Authority (HA) to implement the Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine (ICWM) Pilot Programme to provide ICWM treatment for HA in-patients
In parallel with the establishment of the Clinical & Corporate Governance, collaboration model and evidence based approached, two designated hospital sites (Kwong Wah Hospital & Pamela Youde Nethersole Hospital) were founded for the pilot ICWM program of musculoskeletal (MSK) pain.
As at Oct 2024, total 16 hospital sites covered all Clusters for ICWM MSK Pain developed and in service under the same protocol.
With the concrete policy initiatives and expert support from Greater Bay Area (GBA) & local Chinese Medicine experts, the Chief Executive's Policy Address 2023 identified the disease areas of advantages of ICWM and proceeded to extend services to cover more degenerative disease areas.
Degenerative knee osteoarthritis (OA knee) is a rapidly growing service load to Orthopaedics due to the ageing population. OA knee covers a wide spectrum of conditions which should be matched with the appropriate multi-pronged treatment strategies included both surgical or non-surgical care.
Conventional non-surgical care typically includes analgesics, physiotherapy and patients' empowerment programmes. Evidence based medicine has well confirmed the role of ICWM for symptom and functional improvement for selected groups of OA knee patients. The ICWM OA knee services commenced in Pok Oi Hospital in 2024, building on conventional care by incorporating Chinese medicine treatment for suitable patients upon agreement by the ICWM team. This was the first ICWM out-patient services which enhances the patients' access to an integrated approach of non-surgical care of OA knee.
The ICWM team composed of Orthopaedic surgeons, Chinese Medicine practitioners and ICWM experts from GBA who evaluate, discuss and formulate the ICWM treatment plan together in the clinic. Chinese Medicine treatment modalities, mainly acupuncture, can be conducted in the clinic setting.
After the successful implementation in Pok Oi Hospital, three more ICWM OA knee clinics have been established in other clusters and serving selected OA knee patients with well matched treatment plan.
