1. Symposium on Community Engagement II
Enhancing Medical and Social Welfare Interface Symposium on Community Engagement II
Presented by Timothy Ma
Senior Citizen Home Safety Association
Sept. 23, 2006
2018/11/22
Symposium on Community Engagement II

2. Why Personal Emergency Link Service?
In 1996, an unexpected cold spell caused more than one hundred elderly citizens living alone died at home
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

3. Symposium on Community Engagement II
About SCHSA
In response to the situation, a group of enthusiastic citizens established SCHSA, the only non-profit-making organization rendering PE Link Service in HK (September 1996)
Our belief :
SINGLY NOT FEAR; ELDERLY BE CARED
獨居無懼 老有所依
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

4. Symposium on Community Engagement II
PE Link Service
24 hour emergency assistance
Simple Case management, e.g. short-term reminding service
Hospital referral
Post-discharge emotional assurance
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

5. Symposium on Community Engagement II
Hospital Referral
A communication mechanism established between SCHSA and A&E Departments of public hospitals since Jan, 1997
A standardized Hospital Referral (HR) form has been used for the past 9 years.
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

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2018/11/22
Symposium on Community Engagement II

7. Symposium on Community Engagement II
Procedures
A PE Link user press the alarm and request to be sent to A&E Departments under emergency situation, like heart attack, shortness of breath, etc
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

8. Symposium on Community Engagement II
Procedures (cont.)
PE Link Centre activates the communication mechanism by win-faxing the medical history and personal particulars of the patient to the designated A&E Department for their reference and necessary action.
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

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Procedures
PE Link centre will inform patient’s carers/relatives about his/her latest situation once reply slip from the A&E Departments is received.
Post-discharge emotional reassurance made 2 to 3 days after the patient has been sent to hospital.
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

10. PE Link service users profile
As at 20th September 2006:
47,246 active service users
84,637 accumulated service users across the 10 years
Annual growth rate: about 20%
Across the 10 years, 101,010 people have pressed PE Link and being sent to A&E Departments
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

11. A study on the PE Link data (2005)
Average age of users: 77.5 years old
Living arrangement: 57.2% lived alone
Marital Status: 58.9% married
22% widowed
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

12. Symposium on Community Engagement II
Disease Prevalence
Disease %
Blood pressure problem
54.7%
Eye problem
39.3%
Heart Disease
24.5%
Diabetes
21.1%
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

13. Frequency of disease counts
No. of disease
Frequency %
8280
19.3% 1
13931
32.4% 2
12356
28.7% 3
6604
15.4% 4
1657
3.9% 5
176
0.4%
Each client had 1.54 major diseases on average.
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

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Higher Risk Group
Those having more major diseases
Married
Living with family members
Those living alone tend to have fewer major diseases :
Possible reason: those living alone were more cautious about own health or those in weak health are already admitted into elderly homes
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

15. Higher Risk Group (cont.)
Those having higher risk of making calls :
female,
older in age,
Having heart disease or diabetes
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

16. Higher Risk Group (cont.)
Among the 43,400 active users in 2005, 24% had called for help and were sent to hospital
Average no. of calls per user = 0.57
Among those who made calls and were sent to hospital:
64.3 % were sent once
Others sent 2 to 12+ times (132 of them had been sent >12 times)
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

17. Classification of Risk Groups
Description
Users %
Average calls per user
Low
Neither heart disease nor diabetes
61%
0.4
Median
Heart disease or diabetes
33%
0.5
High
Both heart disease and diabetes 6%
0.8
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High risk user have 180.2% higher risk than low risk user, and have a double of the average call for going to hospital rate
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

19. Extreme Temperature Change
In 2005, 21,396 calls for going to hospital received
Average 58.6 calls each day
More calls for the days with extreme Temperature
Too high (> 30℃) : 67.5 calls
Too low ( <10 ℃) : 64 calls
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

20. Enhancing Medical and Social Interface
For ambulance centre :
Trained operators of PE Link Centre clearly inform the users’ emergency situation and medical history
 Help them to decide which type of ambulance to be assigned
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

21. Enhancing Medical and Social Interface
For A & E
By faxing user’ s medical history to A&E,
timely reference for medical staffs to in advance
facilitate in triage
shorten the time for asking the user’s medical history
Before the mechanism in place, the medical staffs may have to wake the patients up to ask who they are, what kind of diseases they have, etc.
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

22. Enhancing Medical and Social Interface
For SCHSA :
Render more holistic care to the PE Link users, both during emergency assistance and post-discharge support
Support carers by timely information about the status of the patients admitted into hospitals
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

23. Further collaboration
PPI-EPR Sharing
With this enhancement, we can :
Provide more accurate information to A&E and facilitate rescue
Enhance post discharge case management by providing rendering health advice by nurses; hence, hoping to reduce hospital readmission rate
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

24. Enquiries / Future Contact
Timothy Ma
Tel: /
Web site:
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Symposium on Community Engagement II

25. Symposium on Community Engagement II
~ Thank you ~
2018/11/22
Symposium on Community Engagement II