The Hospital Authority (HA) has long valued its collaboration with the private sector in expanding healthcare service and choices for our patients. In recent years, leveraging on available capacity and capability in the private sector through public-private partnership (PPP) has become a key strategy for managing demands for and enhancing public patients’ access to clinical services, ultimately leading to an overall improvement in healthcare service quality through the combined efforts from both the public and private healthcare sectors in Hong Kong.

 

In line with the Government’s healthcare reform agenda, HA has introduced a number of clinical PPP initiatives for its patients. Since 2008, the Cataract Surgeries Programme has successfully encouraged patients in the public sector to receive surgery in the private sector. The Haemodialysis PPP Programme was launched in 2010 to subsidize suitable end-stage renal disease patients to receive haemodialysis in the private sector. In the same year, Patient Empowerment Programme was implemented to improve chronic disease patients’ knowledge of their own disease conditions, enhance their self-management skills and promote partnership with the community. The Radi Collaboration Project was launched in 2012 to fully subsidize patients from selected cancer groups to receive radiological investigation services (CT/MRI) at designated private service providers.

 

With the continually ageing population and epidemiological shift to chronic diseases, the Tin Shui Wai Primary Care Partnership Project and the Shared Care Programme were designed to enhance primary care through PPP in outpatient settings. With the experience gained from these two programmes, the General Outpatient Clinic PPP Programme was launched in mid-2014 in three pilot districts, viz. Tuen Mun, Kwun Tong and Wong Tai Sin. The Programme provides choice of private services for eligible clinically stable chronic disease patients currently attending our general outpatient clinics, offers them the opportunity to choose a private doctor of their choice to follow up their chronic diseases, and establishes a long-term patient-family doctor relationship in order to achieve the objectives of continuous and holistic primary care. The Programme has been rolled out by phases since 2016-17 and is now covering all 18 districts of Hong Kong.

 

Further to the Government’s policy direction, the Provision of Infirmary Service through PPP was introduced in 2016 in which HA collaborates with a non-governmental organization to enhance the choices of infirmary care services for applicants on the Central Infirmary Waiting List managed by HA. In the same year, the Colon Assessment PPP Programme was launched for a defined group of HA patients fulfilling the programme criteria and who would choose to receive specialist care and colonoscopy in the private sector.

 

Since then, the HA launched the Glaucoma PPP Programme in 2019 on a pilot basis. It is the first clinical PPP for patients who require long-term specialist outpatient care at HA. Eligible glaucoma patients are provided with choice for receiving private specialist services in the community.

 

By sharing clinical information across sectors through the Electronic Health Record Sharing System, the efficient operational workflow of clinical PPP programmes and easy access to data of different clinical PPP programmes in a secure manner between HA and the private sector have contributed to the success of PPP.

 

As a major participant of the overall healthcare reform agenda in Hong Kong, the HA will continue to support the policy direction of the Government while actively exploring more clinical PPP opportunities in the future.

 

We hope the updates on PPP projects and related documents contained this homepage will provide useful information to you all. Please do not hesitate to let us know your valuable comments and suggestions, for we believe it is through mutual reflections that a higher level of excellence could be achieved in running PPP programmes in Hong Kong.

 

Dr Simon Tang

Director, Cluster Services Division

Hospital Authority