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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY




            HONG KONG’S HEALTH SYSTEM IS YET TO
            BECOME FIT-FOR-PURPOSE


            In 2018, Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF) published the policy paper Fit for Purpose:
            A Health System for the 21st Century and recommended system-level transformations that
            would best equip Hong Kong’s health system for meeting 21st century population health
            challenges. The ability of Hong Kong’s longstanding hospital-based, specialist and episodic
            care-focused health system to overcome current and future challenges in meeting emerging
            healthcare needs is constrained by structural barriers. These barriers include an
            underdeveloped primary healthcare (PHC) system, segmented public-private healthcare
            service delivery and service fragmentation throughout the system. As our population ages,
            the new “normal” we are already seeing is a growing burden of chronic diseases that
            continues to exert pressure on health resources and ultimately compromises sustainability.
            The paper concluded that Hong Kong’s health system urgently needs to reorient towards an
            integrated, person-centred, primary care–led modality to ensure comprehensive
            and continuous person-centred care for citizens over the life course (Box A). Emphasis was
            placed upon the importance of pivoting towards care provision in the community that is
            integrated across different levels of care, coordinated between
            specialities and providers, and interfaced with social care (OHKF, 2018).
            Achieving this will provide a system infrastructure to meet the holistic needs of individuals,
            enhance health system effectiveness and efficiency, and transform Hong Kong’s healthcare
            delivery system into one that aspires to provide “Health for All”.


               Box A


                   Key recommendation themes of the Fit for Purpose:
                   A Health System for the 21st Century report



                   Recommendation theme 1.
                   Enabling person-centred care through reorienting the health system for “the
                   community of persons”

                   Recommendation theme 2.
                   Achieving primary care-led integrated care through reorganising how
                   services are delivered to strengthen integration within and between providers
                   and sectors

                   Recommendation theme 3.

                   Improving health governance in primary care-led, integrated, and person-
                   centred care through setting up governance levers and structures to support
                   and enable development of new service models


            Source: OHKF, 2018









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