OUHK launches new health management app for elderly and chronically ill, after years of commitment to training community health workers and volunteers
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Like many developed societies in the world, Hong Kong has been battling the challenge of an increasingly ageing population. For the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK), which positions itself as an educator that has society’s needs at heart, the ageing issue constitutes a major theme of its community initiatives as well as curriculum development.
Back in 2012, OUHK received a sum of HK$10.7 million from The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust to set up the Jockey Club Community Healthcare Education Programme, a multifaceted initiative composed of certificate and diploma programmes in community health care, a healthcare volunteer training scheme known as the Jockey Club Home Health Watch Programme, and various community campaigns.
The fruitful partnership was concluded in July with the graduation of the fifth tranche of 420 Home Health Watch graduates. The Home Health Watch programme, set up in September 2014, has attained its goal of equipping 1,500 volunteers with basic healthcare skills to support people in need back in their neighbourhoods, such as senior citizens, those living with chronic illnesses, those recovering from mental health conditions and disabled persons. And having taken on a great number of senior volunteers, it was certified earlier this year by the Jockey Club Age-Friendly City project, the Charities Trust’s own programme to promote the concept of an age-friendly community. Together with the certificate and diploma programmes, the OUHK-Jockey Club partnership has over the years trained more than 2,200 healthcare workers and volunteers for Hong Kong.
OUHK’s community healthcare commitment certainly goes beyond a single sponsorship. The University has decided that the Home Health Watch programme would not be an end, but another beginning. The programme was extended in September 2019 with an updated curriculum that places greater emphasis on medication training.
Associated with the modified programme is a new healthcare mobile application, eCare, designed and developed by a professional team at the OUHK School of Nursing and Health Studies. Supported by a HK$3.8 million grant from the Innovation and Technology Bureau’s ‘Innovation and Technology Fund for Better Living’, the app aptly uses smart technology to make lives easier for those depending on daily medications. Among its five simple yet practical functions are medical and clinical appointment alerts, which are integrated with OCR technology precise enough to read most prescription and appointment labels. The app also comes with a built-in Chinese-language drug database that contains information of more than 200 common medicinal drugs — the first such locally built database — allowing quick facts and usage notes to pop up upon scanning or inputting a drug’s name. Alternatively, users can look up the database for the uses and potential side effects of specific drugs, or learn everyday medication skills such as how to crush pills and how to use an inhaler properly from the app’s augmented reality guide. The most distinctive feature of eCare, however, is its support for carers. Each user can be registered with a carer who will be notified should the user miss an alert. Behind this, the history of medication alerts is stored in the system and can thus be shared with medical staff for follow-up purposes.
The eCare app was officially launched at a ceremony on 26 October, held to coincide with the orientation session of the 2019–20 Home Health Watch programme. With a view to benefiting the community at large, OUHK President Prof. Yuk-Shan Wong addressed the ceremony, ‘The eCare app will allow round-the-clock support to be provided to the elderly and those living with chronic illnesses. We will collaborate with hospitals, clinics and NGOs to promote it, hoping to achieve 20,000 downloads in the first two years. In the long run, we expect the app to serve more than 100,000 people.’ To start with, the Home Health Watch volunteers will be encouraged to introduce the app to and use it with those they serve.
