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The Hospital Authority (HA) today (May 14) announces a series of new improvement measures to enhance the Telephone Booking System for General Out-patient Clinics (GOPCs) to better serve needy patients, in particular the elderly. The new measures include reserved "Elderly Appointment Quota", distribution of 300,000 "Tips Cards" to facilitate the elderly, and launching of the 24-hour "Anytime Advance Booking" system.
The HA Senior Manager (Primary Care), Dr Aylwin Chan, said in the press briefing today, "since the full implementation of GOPC telephone booking services in October last year, we have been collecting feedback from the community and elderly patients. Improvement measures have been introduced in response to meeting the need of elderly patients when using the telephone booking service."
The three new improvement measures being implemented this month include:
1. Elderly Appointment Quota ¡ª Basing on previous utilization pattern and age distribution at GOPCs, a certain number of quotas will be reserved at each clinic for elderly aged 65 or above to help facilitate their telephone booking of appointment. HA will constantly monitor the utilization pattern and trends for necessary adjustment of the number of reserved quotas.
2. "Tips Card" for Telephone Booking ¡ª HA has produced 300,000 "Tips Cards" for distribution to elderly patients and carers through various channels, including GOPCs, offices of district councillors and legislators, elderly centres and community organisations. The elderly and carers could simply follow the steps as set out in the Tips Card to make the telephone booking.
3. The 24-hour "Anytime Advance Booking" ¡ª Starting from tomorrow (May 15), the public could call a general clinic at anytime to book an appointment within the next 24 hours. Previously, the booking of appointment has to start at 3pm everyday. The new arrangement would allow the public to enjoy greater flexibility. For instance, if a patient felt unwell at 1 pm now, he could only get an appointment through the telephone booking on the same day from 2pm to 5pm. Under the new arrangement, he would be able to get an appointment within the next 24 hours, i.e. from 2pm to 5pm; or from 6pm to 10pm the same day; or from 9am to 1pm the next day.
According to Dr Chan, HA will widely publicise the new improvement measures to the public through various channels. "Meanwhile, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the community partners, such as Care for the Elderly Association, for their support to help distribute the Tips Cards and assist the elderly in using the telephone booking system for consultation at our general clinics."
"To ensure that the telephone booking service will meet the need of the community, especially the elderly patients, we would continue to closely monitor and collect public feedback for constant review and improvements of the system," Dr Chan remarked.
Ends/Monday, May 14, 2007
Issued at HKT 20:10
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