Patient self-management and pharmacist-led patient self-management in Hong Kong: a focus group study from different healthcare professionals' perspectives.

BACKGROUND: Patient self-management is a key approach to manage non-communicable diseases. A pharmacist-led approach in patient self-management means collaborative care between pharmacists and patients. However, the development of both patient self-management and role of pharmacists is limited in Hong Kong. The objectives of this study are to understand the perspectives of physicians, pharmacists, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners, and dispensers on self-management of patients with chronic conditions, in addition to exploring the possibilities of developing pharmacist-led patient self-management in Hong Kong. METHODS: Participants were invited through the University as well as professional networks. Fifty-one participants comprised of physicians, pharmacists, TCM practitioners and dispensers participated in homogenous focus group discussions. Perspectives in patient self-management and pharmacist-led patient self-management were discussed. The discussions were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed accordingly. RESULTS: The majority of the participants were in support of patients with stable chronic diseases engaging in self-management. Medication compliance, monitoring of disease parameters and complications, lifestyle modification and identifying situations to seek help from health professionals were generally agreed to be covered in patient self-management. All pharmacists believed that they had extended roles in addition to drug management but the other three professionals believed that pharmacists were drug experts only and could only play an assisting role. Physicians, TCM practitioners, and dispensers were concerned that pharmacist-led patient self-management could be hindered, due to unfamiliarity with the pharmacy profession, the perception of insufficient training in disease management, and lack of trust of patients. CONCLUSIONS: An effective chronic disease management model should involve patients in stable condition to participate in self-management in order to prevent health deterioration and to save healthcare costs. The role of pharmacists should not be limited to drugs and should be extended in the primary healthcare system. Pharmacist-led patient self-management could be developed gradually with the support of government by enhancing pharmacists' responsibilities in health services and developing public-private partnership with community pharmacists. Developing facilitating measures to enhance the implementation of the pharmacist-led approach should also be considered, such as allowing pharmacists to access electronic health records, as well as deregulation of more prescription-only medicines to pharmacy-only medicines.

Developing a holistic view and approach to health care. René Sand Lecture. International Hospital Federation Congress--May 2001.

One of the significant features of Hong Kong is its public healthcare system, which provides universal, easily accessible and heavily subsidized medical care for all. The governing policy has been to ensure that no one is denied adequate medical care because of insufficient means through the provision of a comprehensive range of healthcare services funded from the public purse at extremely low fees to users. Over the past decade, the public hospital sector has been able to provide efficient and quality health services comparable to those of the industrialised nations. However, the reality today is that the public hospitals are facing many challenges that must be overcome and ways must be sought to mitigate the growing strains on the healthcare system and rebalance the healthcare economics. The recently published Consultation Document on Healthcare Reform, by Dr E K Yeoh, Secretary for Health & Welfare, proposes the introduction of a comprehensive range of short-term and long-term initiatives to revitalize and transform the healthcare system into a community-focused, patient-centred and knowledge-based integrated healthcare service with improved interface between the public and private sectors.

Radiation therapy in hyperbaric oxygen for head and neck cancer at Royal Adelaide Hospital--1964 to 1980.

This report describes experience with radiation therapy in hyperbaric oxygen in 201 patients with squamous carcinoma arising in the mobile portion of tongue (anterior 2/3), oropharynx, hypopharynx, and supraglottic larynx, treated between the years 1964 and 1980. Although not statistically different, the overall 5-year determinate survival figures of 35% for all patients with tumors arising in the hypopharynx, 87.5% for Stage I and II, 55% for Stage III, and 27.1% for Stage IV supraglottic carcinoma were perceptibly better than those obtained in a contemporary but not randomly controlled series of patients treated in air at Royal Adelaide Hospital from 1970 to 1980. The results obtained for tumors arising in the oropharynx and mobile portion of tongue however were found to be very similar to those achieved in air. The results achieved in this series are discussed in the context of experience at other centers and the role of randomly controlled clinical studies in evaluating new treatment modalities is emphasized.

The mechanism of diarrhoea resulting from pelvic and abdominal radiotherapy; a prospective study using selenium-75 labelled conjugated bile acid and cobalt-58 labelled cyanocobalamin.

An attempt was made to elucidate the mechanism of diarrhoea resulting from pelvic and abdominal radiotherapy in a prospective study of 10 patients undergoing treatment for curable pelvic malignant tumours using the synthetic trihydroxy 75Se-labelled conjugated bile acid, SeHcat and 58Co-labelled cyanocobalamin (58Co Vit B12). Evidence of malabsorption of vitamin B12 measured as a significant fall in whole body percentage retention of 58Co Vit B12 from baseline levels was found in all nine patients who developed diarrhoea during radiotherapy. Only four out of these nine patients also had malabsorption of the trihydroxy conjugated bile acid, cholic acid, measured as a significant fall in SeHcat whole body percentage retention and these patients had the most severe diarrhoea. The findings are discussed in the light of what is known about the pathophysiology of diarrhoea during pelvic and abdominal radiotherapy and lend support to previous work which implicated increased bowel motility in the pathogenesis of radiation-induced diarrhoea. The hypothesis that local neuroendocrine mechanisms in the gut may be involved is put forward, with possible implications for treatment.