Nurse telecare scheme expands
Patient check-up programme to include those with other conditions
A SUCCESSFUL programme that has nurses calling up diabetic patients to monitor their progress has been expanded to include patients with other chronic conditions.
The telecare scheme now covers heart failure patients as well as those suffering from chronic lung disease.
The plan is to extend these services by the Health Management Unit to include patients with coronary artery disease, stroke and hip fracture in the hope of obtaining similar results.
Hospital admission among the diabetics dropped by about a third under the scheme. They also chalked up better blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol readings.
Currently, all chronic lung disease patients who have been recently discharged from hospital are automatically enrolled on it, as are patients with severe heart failure and diabetics with poorly controlled sugar levels.
On Friday, the Eastern Health Alliance and national health-care IT company Integrated Health Information Systems won the FutureGov Healthcare Organisation of the Year award for this telecare scheme.
The Asia-Pacific accolade celebrates the best public sector IT-driven innovations in the region.
Under the scheme, a nurse would call the patients a month after they are discharged, talk to them about their condition and teach them how to tell if their disease is worsening.
They also share tips on good dietary and lifestyle practices. This is done four times over six months.
The interaction is captured on a computer programme which stores electronic medical records. If a patient is readmitted, the phone calls resume when he is discharged or if complications occur later on.