Telehealth initiative in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, an aging population and rising healthcare cost have put a lot of stress on the healthcare infrastructure. By 2033, almost one in four in the population will be 65 or older, while the healthcare expenditure will take up 9.2% of the GDR It becomes an increasingly challenging problem to provide sustainable, accessible and good quality of health care to the elderly citizens. To overcome the challenges, we aim to apply ICT technology to transform the care delivery model; shifting location of care from hospitals to community and shifting responsibility of care from specialist resources to patients. With assistance of ICT technologies, some health care normally provided by hospitals can be performed by trained social worker in a community center, or the patients themselves can perform some health care normally provided by nurses. The transformation of care delivery model not only can contain capital and operation costs of health care but also help achieve the vision of "Aging in Place", enabling elderly people to live with their families or in a friendly environment as they age.