Authors (including presenting author) :
Cheung ACK (1)(2), Yim WM (2), Ng CH (3), Rainer TH (1)(2)
Affiliation :
(1) Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, HKU
(2) Gleneagles Hospital (Hong Kong)
(3) AMBER Medical Group
Introduction :
In Hong Kong, patient conveyance for acute hospital service is mostly provided by ground ambulances from the Fire Service Department and St. John Ambulance Brigade, and by helicopters from the Government Flying Service. With the ageing population and relocation within the Greater Bay Area, there is a pressing need for a well-regulated private ambulance service to provide efficient, patient-oriented transportation, which augments the currently stretched emergency medical service. In 2022, the AMBER Medical Group initiated the first licenced ambulance fleet. Since October 2024 it has collaborated with Gleneagles Hospital Hong Kong (GHK) to provide the first hospital-based medical escort service in Hong Kong. However, little is known about this service model and the impact to the local community.
Objectives :
To characterise the novel escort service led by a university affiliated private hospital.
Methodology :
From 1st Oct 2024 to 31st Dec 2024, all successful bookings for the escort service to and from GHK were identified from the hospital call centre database. We retrieved patient demographics, requesting and receiving locations, type of transport service and escort personnel. Continuous variables were expressed in median with interquartile range while categorical variables were expressed in percentages. Subgroup analysis was performed to those transported to and from Hospital Authority (HA) hospitals.
Result & Outcome :
Seventy-one patient conveyances (median age 73 years (IQR 61-84 years; males 54.9% (39/71)) were performed during the study period. 44 patients were transferred in, and 27 patients were transferred out (including discharge home) of GHK. Transfers to GHK from HA, home or hostel, and other institutes were 61.4% (27/44), 25% (11/44) and 13.6% (6/44) respectively. For patients transferred from HA, the median length of stay in GHK was 6 days (IQR 6-12 days), in which the percentages from Hong Kong Island clusters, Kowloon clusters, and New Territories clusters were 48.2% (13/27), 40.7% (11/27) and 11.1% (3/27) respectively. For patients transferred from other institutes, 83.3% (5/6) involved direct handover at Shenzhen Bay Port or Airport apron. The medical personnel deployed for the escort included paramedics (84.5%), paramedics plus nurses (4.2%) and paramedics plus doctors and nurses (11.3%). No adverse events or complaints were recorded during this period.
Conclusion: The newly established medical escort service provides feasible, safe alternative of ambulance transportation to and from any region in Hong Kong and worldwide. Further studies to investigate its cost-effectiveness to alleviate the clinical burden in public hospitals are warranted.
