Covid-19 spurred the expansion of telemedicine at public hospitals in Hong Kong, with more than 45,000 sessions during the pandemic, and hospital chiefs are considering doing even more.

The Hospital Authority, which oversees all the city’s public hospitals, said online consultations helped to cut waiting times, while doctors were able to see more patients, and satisfaction levels went up too.

“We want to make it as convenient as online shopping, but we recognise we need to make more effort in smoothening the edges and improving the experience for patients,” Dr Michael Wong Lap-kee, chief manager for cluster performance, said at a media briefing.

The authority rolled out telemedicine consultation services on its HA Go mobile application after the pandemic began in early 2020.

When Hong Kong was struck by a fifth wave of coronavirus infections in January this year, it began delivering two Covid-19 oral pills - Paxlovid and Molnupiravir - to patients’ homes.

The telemedicine sessions included more than 20,000 online consultations with doctors, 14,000 checks with residents of elderly homes and more than 5,000 sessions for other services such as physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

The authority’s chief medical informatics officer, Dr Joanna Pang, said the online services included various specialists in internal medicine, brain surgery and orthopaedics.

The patients were mostly those in stable condition who needed a consultation about a blood test result or X-ray report. Patients were not seen online for their first appointment.

Wong said telemedicine allowed patients to save transport time and even do their online consultation from their office. Doctors found they could see more patients in a day.

In one case, a woman aged over 80, with chronic illnesses and living in the remote village of Tai O on Lantau island, had her check-up online and was spared having to travel to North Lantau Hospital.

Wong said it also meant her children did not have to take leave from work to accompany her to hospital.

He said the telemedicine team was considering holding online classes for patients on self care, including showing those with diabetes how to prick their fingers and check their blood sugar level at home.

But he acknowledged that there were teething problems to smoothen out, such as how to provide electronic sick leave certificates on HA Go, instead of asking patients to collect the paper copy at the hospitals.

“We are also looking at joint consultations across hospitals and specialties so a patient can be seen by a family doctor and specialist at the same time without having to go through the referral and waiting process,” he said.

Alex Lam Chi-yau, chairman of the NGO Patients’ Voices, said 45,000 online sessions over more than two years was “not a lot”, given there were more than 1,792,000 Covid-19 infections alone during that time.

He said the Hospital Authority had to tackle the issue of drug delivery first if it wanted to expand telemedicine.

“If delivering to every patient is too costly, the authority could issue a prescription order on the app and let patients buy the drugs at a pharmacy close to them.”

Urging the authority to seize the opportunity to expand telemedicine, he added: “As we come out of this pandemic, we should not go back to the old ways and should instead try to entrench these technological advances and benefit the patients in the long term.”

 - SCMP