Services
Driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots that can simulate human conversation are increasingly developed to provide health information and advice. The School’s project team has developed and tested the first generation of chatbot for quitting, which is supported by Health and Medical Research Fund Research Fellowship Scheme. “Dr. Wise (智快戒)” is the enhanced and Hong Kong’s first AI-powered chatbot for promoting smoking cessation developed by the School in collaboration with Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Integrated Centre on Smoking Cessation (ICSC), one of the major smoking cessation services subvented by the Department of Health. The chatbot aims to increase the accessibility and uptake of smoking cessation treatment provided by the ICSC. It can give advice and information about smoking cessation and respond to users' queries by using natural language processing. The chatbot can also provide more intensive smoking cessation support via live chat operated by counsellors.
The chatbot was launched on World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2021 and it can be accessed via WhatsApp (https://wa.me/85223328977).
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November 9 - 11, 2018
World Diabetes Day 2018
Our School was invited by the Angel of Diabetic to set up an education booth at the 「糖尿天使陪著你走世界糖尿病日嘉年華會」, a major community event in Hong Kong to commemorate the World Diabetes Day. Led by Dr Mandy Ho and Dr Maggie Pun, more than 60 HKU nursing students volunteered at the 3-day event to promote diabetes prevention via various interactive games and to provide health screening for the public. The event was attended by more than 1,000 participants and received very positive feedback.Dr Mandy Ho also delivered a public health talk on pre-diabetes. People with pre-diabetes are at increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, which is a major non-communicable disease and one of the world’s fastest growing public health problem.
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Loving Care for Chronic Disease Awards Ceremony and Health Promotion Day
Students from the School volunteered at the annual event “Loving Care for Chronic Disease Awards Ceremony and Health Promotion Day” organised by the Kwong Wah Hospital Family Medicine and General Out-Patient Department and the Hong Kong Primary Care for Chronic Disease Association (HKPCCDA) on January 27, 2018. “Keeping your Bones Healthy and Fall Prevention” is the theme of this year’s Health Promotion Day. Nursing students and teachers volunteered to provide osteoporosis and blood pressure screening and health advices to older people with chronic diseases and their carers. Over 500 participants attended the event. The School’s participation help contributed to the empowerment of chronic disease patients and their families, as well as the promotion of mutual communications, support and collaboration among patients, carers, healthcare providers and the community for the better health and well-being of Hong Kong people. |
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November 3 - 5, 2017
World Diabetes Day 2017
World Diabetes Day was launched in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in response to the rapid rise of diabetes around the world. To promote the awareness of diabetes and the understanding of the side effects and the preventive measures of diabetes, more than 20 nursing students served at the World Diabetes Day Carnival 2017 organised by the Angle of Diabetic Limited. This event attracted more than 2,000 participants. The HKU nursing students managed game booths and provided health screening and health advices to participants from all walks of life. The participants found the health information provided by our students educational and helpful. |
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May 1, 2017
Hong Kong St. John Ambulance Brigade Health Promotion Day
The School is devoted to promoting and delivering high quality health to the community. Hence members of the School proactively participate in broad spectrum of healthcare promotion activities. A group of teachers and students took part in the Health Promotion Day of Hong Kong St. John Ambulance Brigade on May 1, 2017. The School joined the campaign for heightening public awareness of a healthy and caring life by setting up four game stalls to promote smoking cessation, sodium and sugar intake reduction, and mental health promotion. The volunteers received positive responses from participants, who enjoyed playing the educational games very much. |
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School of Nursing Promotes Healthy Ageing for Elderly People in the Community
The School of Nursing, in collaboration with the Hong Kong Housing Authority, organised the Healthy Ageing in Public Rental Housing Estates Programme 2018/19 starting from September 1, 2018. The programme aims to promote active lifestyles and healthy ageing among elderly tenants living in public housing estates. Led by an experienced community nurse, our nursing students provided elderly tenants with free health check services and advice on aged-related illnesses. This was done in three parts.
Firstly, health checks were performed at the tenants’ homes in Sai Wan Estate. Then, mobile health check stations and mini health exhibition about sarcopenia were set up at different public housing estates to educate the residents. To date the initiative has performed health checks for over 800 elderly tenants and the mini health exhibition has received over 5,000 visitors. In the third part, health talks about sarcopenia were organised for 600 elderly tenants from 14 public housing estates in different districts.
The School of Nursing hopes to continue promoting health ageing in the community through various events and initiatives such as this.
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There are increasing needs of older adults especially in physical, mental and social aspect in Hong Kong due to increasing ageing population. This Jockey Club NICE-Link Project is a 3-year project mainly targeted at social isolated older adults living as singleton and doubletons since 2018. The project adapts innovative care approaches, including the Integrative Care of Older People (ICOPE) model, medical-social collaboration, developing social capital and enhancement of social integration. Nurses and health coaches collaborated closely to enhance older adults’ physical and mental health, reintegrate the elders-community connection in order to enhance the intrinsic capacity and to promote healthy ageing of the older adults.
Comprehensive assessments on older adults’ physical, mental and social profile were completed by a nursing team in order to capture the health status, match up with a health coach, and formulate follow up plans in future. Visits, telephone care, health promotions and activities would then be delivered by a health coach to older adults with health action plans regularly discussed and reviewed. These health coaches have attended health training modules to enhance their knowledge on providing health education and promotion.
The project aims to increase the alertness of older adults’ health, educate them to deal with common geriatric symptoms wisely and ultimately expand their social engagement through health promotion and activities. In collaboration with Hong Kong Christian Service (HKCS) and Sik Sik Yuen Social Service (SSY), our team assessed 65 older adults (as of Jun 2019) by outreaching method.
The assessment utilizes the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) model advocated by the World Health Organization and concluded 10 dimensions of health profiles to capture their physical, mental and social needs holistically.
Please visit: https://www.nice-link.hku.hk/research-and-analysis for the preliminary statistics and analysis.
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HKU developed very brief advice (VBA) on smoking cessation online training package for healthcare professionals
Smoking is the leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality, yet over 60% of daily smokers in Hong Kong still haven't tried or are unwilling to quit.
The Department of Health Tobacco and Alcohol Control Office, HKU School of Nursing and HKU School of Public Health developed an online self-directed training set targeting healthcare professionals to deliver brief smoking cessation advice to patients in order to motivate smokers to quit, and actively refer patients to smoking cessation service providers.
The very brief smoking cessation advice has been scientifically proven both overseas and locally to be effective in motivating smokers to quit and increasing tobacco abstinence rate in as short as 30 seconds.
Led by Dr Derek Cheung, Assistant Professor of HKU School of Nursing, this project took place in 2020/2021 aimed to create a smoking cessation intervention at primary care settings and to empower healthcare professionals (including doctors, dentists, nurses, Chinese medicine practitioners, pharmacists, dietitians and allied health professionals) to deliver very brief advice on smoking cessation.
For details of the VBA training package and the research article, please visit:
https://vba.livetobaccofree.hk/index.html
Quitline: 1833 183
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Women Quitline was established in 2006 and targeted on female smokers aged 15 or above. This is the first smoking cessation counselling service tailor-made for female smokers in Hong Kong. We set up the Woman Against Tobacco Taskforce (WATT) with 14 women organizations in the community, with a target to stress the health hazards of smoking and importance of smoking cessation for women. A one-day training workshop to 28 WATT affiliates who provided brief cessation counselling in the community was organised, and intensive gender-specific smoking cessation counselling was provided to female smokers in Hong Kong. We publicized our gender-specific cessation counselling service to the community through collaboration with WATT members, mass media strategies, campaigns, promotional leaflets and posters, and website.
The Women Quitline has answered 1,126 telephone enquiries and provided smoking cessation counselling for 560 female smokers. About 30.2% participants had successfully quit smoking at the 6-month follow-up. Please visit Women Quitline’s website at www.wquit.hku.hk for more information.
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Youth Quitline was the first smoking cessation hotline targeted on youth smokers aged 25 or below since 2005. The Quitline was jointly established by the Smoking Cessation Research Team of School of Nursing of Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health of Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine and Department of Social Work and Social Administration, HKU, and the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health.
The Quitline provided peer counselling via telephone to youth smokers. As at August 2016, the Quitline has held 8 training programmes and more than 400 youth counsellors were trained and equipped with smoking cessation counselling skills. Moreover, the Quitline has answered 9,267 telephone enquiries and provided smoking cessation counselling for 1,952 youth smokers. About 24% participants had successfully quit smoking at the 6-month follow-up and 11.5% of them reduced their cigarette consumption at least by half. Please visit Youth Quitline’s website at http://nursing.hku.hk/yquit/ for more information.
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