Empowering Your Health Management with 醫健通eHealth App
“Technological development has become a trend. As the representative of a patients’ organisation, I am glad to see that with the advance of technology, patients can more proactively participate in health management through the 醫健通eHealth App (App). This is really a good thing which I highly encourage. Cyber security and patient privacy are the two keys to the wider use of the App. With these two aspects refined in addition to promotion and publicity at different levels, citizens’ capabilities to manage their own health will then be enhanced.”
Started from connecting the public and private healthcare organisations and healthcare professionals (HCProfs), the continuous development of the Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHealth) now not only facilitates HCProfs to take care of patients’ needs more efficiently, its benefits are recognised by more citizens. In the first quarter of this year, the Electronic Health Record (eHR) Office launched the “醫健通eHealth” App for download and use by the public. Mr Yuen Siu-lam, the Chairman of Hong Kong Alliance of Patients’ Organizations Limited (HKAPO), highly encouraged patients to utilise technology to manage their own health as technological development has become a trend. He mentioned that the functions of the App should meet users’ requirements, for example, practical functions such as viewing records of medications, medical appointments, vaccinations and health care voucher transaction history, etc., could greatly enhance the interest and recognition towards the App among users of different age groups.
User-friendly Interface Design
Many citizens in Hong Kong got accustomed to use mobile applications every day. Given the target users of eHealth were the general public, Mr Yuen pointed out that a user-friendly interface was of paramount importance. “It is crucial to avoid using confusing colours, as well as to adopt large and clear fonts, and icons with special and suitable color matching to cater for the needs of patients having colour vision deficiency or colour blindness,” he added.“Elders in general have relatively weaker eyesight so the App has to include the features for customising the layout and font size, and display simple and concise icons.”
Apart from the user interface, Mr Yuen considered that in future, if the App could provide health data input function, it would attract more people to download and use. “Users can be more aware of their own health when health data are available. For example, they can simply measure the blood pressure and input to the App for record by themselves, which enable them to monitor the changes in their health conditions; or to show the data to HCProfs for reference in order to save the time in consultation. This also works in tandem with the Government’s primary healthcare policy of ‘Prevention is better than cure’,” he said.
Promotion Through Network of Patient Groups
A full range of promotion and education is indispensable for attracting users of different ages to use the App. “In addition to publicise through various channels such as promotional videos, posters and social media, I suggest setting up some service support counters in districts to help citizens registering with eHealth, and more importantly, to provide on-the-spot guidance on how to use the App to those who are relatively less familiar with electronic devices and mobile applications. Real comments and feedback from users when using the App can also be observed at the same time,” he emphasised.
The App could assist patients to manage their own health and Mr Yuen was willing to assist in promoting and publicising eHealth. “There are more than 40 patient groups in HKAPO. Despite the social distancing restrictions under the pandemic, various seminars and workshops can still be held through video conferencing,” he said. “Our organisation welcomes representatives from the eHR Office to demonstrate and elaborate the steps of using the App to our members. By way of members’ experience sharing after using the App, patients can learn more about the App and eHealth’s benefits can be spread through their positive word-of-mouth. In the course of engagement, patients’ opinions will be collected and consolidated for reflecting to the eHR Office, with a view to continuously improving the functions of the App.”
To conclude, Mr Yuen was of the view that every new thing must undergo the development progress by phases, therefore, he believed there should be still room for improvement for the App after its launch. He was confident that the development team would keep on improving the App taking into account respective users’ experience, and eventually achieving the objective of empowering citizens to manage their own health.
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