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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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