Authors (including presenting author) :
Wang YX(1), Lui NFJ(1), Fung HO(2), Leung PY(2)
Affiliation :
(1)Occupational Therapy Department, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Introduction :
In Hong Kong, about 70% of older adults have at least one chronic disease, self-health management is an essential daily living skill and is crucial for maintain independent community living. Hospital Authority has been releasing the mobile application ‘HA Go’ since 2019 to enhance patient’s experience and healthcare outcome. The one-stop mobile platform allows patient-centered smart disease management, enables patients to schedule appointments and access healthcare professionals without in-patient visits. However, elderly individuals often encounter various barriers when using smart technology and accessing public medical service effectively, common struggles include vision and hearing impairments, declined dexterity, cognitive impairment and even fear and anxiety. Without tailor made assistive adaptation and memory strategies, they are facing big challenges in learning and using the HA Go application. To address these barriers and maximize the benefits of smart health management, Occupational Therapists started a tailored training program to facilitate older patients with cognitive decline to learn the HA Go and ensure they can manage their health through smart technology independently and effectively.
Objectives :
To review the outcome and effectiveness of the empowerment program.
Methodology :
Patients aged over 60 who had subjective cognitive complaints and required out-patient Occupational Therapy cognitive assessment were invited to join the program based on their needs and motivation. Each group consisted of 4 to 5 patients, and their family members were encouraged to join. The program included 3 face-to-face sessions and 1 telehealth session, Occupational Therapists (OT) provided specialized instructions based on patients’ unique needs and ability to teach them how to use core functions of the HA Go application. To address the individualized barriers, OT recommended assistive aids, educated tailor-made strategies and practiced joining a remote telehealth educational class. The aim is to ensure the elderly patients have confidence to use the smart technology of HA Go application for self-health management. Outcome measures were analyzed before and after the program to review patients’ self-efficacy and effectiveness of the program.
Result & Outcome :
From March 2024 to present, 19 patients were recruited to the program with a mean age of 74.1 years, among them 26.3% patients were aged 80 and above. 78.9% of the patients reported experiencing subjective cognitive problems and 47.4% of them had neurocognitive disorder as indicated by the HK-MoCA. All patients had impaired performance in executive function and delay recall. Before the program, only 36.8% of patients were able to log in to the app and 21.1% were able to utilize any function. Upon completing the program, 82.3% of participants were able to log into the application independently and 94.1% successfully utilized the functions in HA Go for self-health management, including self-registration and payment, participate telehealth educational group and book General Out-patient Clinic appointments. Their confidence level in using HA Go significantly increased from 2.8 to 6.7 post program. They perceived smart technology as more convenient and efficient for self-health management. The elderly participants expressed a willingness to recommend the program to other seniors they know.
In conclusion, the tailored Occupational Therapy training program can effectively enhance the elderly’s confidence and utilization of smart technology in self-health management. In future, the program is worth expanding to engage more elderly individuals to adopting smart technology like telemedicine and telecare to improve overall health outcomes and empowering them for self-health management.
