Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority to reveal plans for digital upgrades next week, including possible telemedicine access for children

Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority will reveal plans next week for upgrading its services to keep pace with digital developments, including the possibility of allowing children to benefit from telemedicine.

More details will be announced at the authority’s first physical annual conference since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, taking place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. More than 6,700 healthcare professionals and about 120 speakers will join the event next Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the city’s public hospital operator.

Dr Joanna Pang Yuk-wa, the authority’s chief medical informatics officer, said the future of the “HA Go” mobile application that had been serving the city since January 2021 would be on the event’s agenda.

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The app allows residents to make bookings for telemedicine services, access their records and input health data.

Pang said the authority had launched a pilot scheme to teach patients from psychiatric departments about accessing the remote consultations in late April.

“In future, we will continue to expand one-on-one virtual consultations and courses, hoping to explore how we can promote telemedicine in different settings such as inpatient, outpatient, day patients or outreach services,” she told a media briefing on Monday.

“We will research introducing teleconsultations in group settings so that patients’ carers can also be involved. We have also received a lot of feedback asking whether children under 18 years old can be covered by HA Go’s telemedicine services.”

More details would be provided at the convention, Pang said.

The event will host 50 sessions covering topics such as smart hospital development, artificial intelligence in healthcare, FinTech, training, well-being for healthcare professionals and medicine safety.

Fifteen masterclasses will also explore clinical topics such as limb prosthesis, thyroid eye disease, personalised radiotherapy and pain management.

Online broadcasts of the event will be shown at more than 100 locations managed by the authority.

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The coronavirus pandemic that began three years ago forced the cancellation of the annual event in 2020 and 2022, while the 2021 edition was moved online.

“We are very happy that we can organise an in-person convention so that our doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals and scholars can meet each other in the flesh and engage in discussions,” said Dr Simon Tang Yiu-hang, the authority’s director of cluster services.

Dr Larry Lee Lap-yip, a chief manager at the authority, said the expansion of telemedicine to include residents aged under 18 years would be dealt with in a step-by-step manner and obstacles were expected.

“For paediatric patients, they are usually [more suitable] for inpatient consultations and their parents prefer inpatient consultations as well,” Lee said.

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“There will be some more limitations for promoting telehealth for patients under 18 as well – electronic signatures will be one, because of legal requirements.”

He said the authority would optimise and promote “e-channels” that integrated digital services at public hospitals. Those services include online bookings, self-payment kiosks, queuing systems, digital doctor certificates and drug delivery options.

The authority was also set to introduce a new system for managing patients waiting at facilities, stations for visitors to measure their vital signs on their own, virtual consent forms and digital reports at all specialist clinics, he said.

Patients’ rights advocate Tim Pang Hung-cheong from the Society for Community Organisation said expanding telemedicine services to residents aged under 18 could help further develop primary healthcare as follow-ups could be offered at home.

He said it could also allow working parents to better arrange their schedules when accompanying children at consultations, but it might not be suitable for babies and toddlers.

“During teleconsultation, doctors may not be able to know about the patient’s situation simply by asking questions,” he said, adding that they might need to interact with the children to see if they were spirited or tired.

“The HA may need to take some time to screen suitable patients for telemedicine.”

Pang also suggested the authority allow patients to access their X-ray or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans digitally, check their medical history on “HA Go” and integrate its app with eHealth, the government’s electronic health record sharing system, as part of the upgrade of services.