Referral System and Shared Care
摘要
Many specialists, in the past, have been offering stand-alone service and were not expected to work in close collaboration with family doctors. Referral letters are often one-wayed from primary care while discharge letters are not common practice between primary and secondary care in the healthcare system in Hong Kong. In light of the recent primary healthcare reforms in Hong Kong, it prompts the healthcare sector to redefine the relationship between primary and secondary care and reflect on how primary and secondary care can work together to optimise to better utilise limited healthcare resources and ultimately improve the continuity and quality of care to the patients. The chapter discusses the existing referral system from system-wide, stakeholder, and medico-legal perspectives, while recognising the barriers to universal implementation. Considering local practicalities, it also explores how the patient care responsibility can be shared out from secondary or tertiary centres to a primary community centre and proposes a shared care model in the context of the greater empowerment of patients, with reference to overseas examples. Timely detection and proper follow-ups will enable the efficient use of precious secondary care at a hospital.