Capacity Building and Service Enhancement of Integrated Home Care Services During COVID-19

With modern medicine and technological advancements, the global life expectancy has increased over the last century. As people live longer lives, the ageing population causes an unprecedented rise in demand for healthcare and social services. Integrated Home Care Services (IHCS) provides care and community support services to elderly persons and people with disabilities according to their individual and social needs, to enable them to continue living in the community. This approach helps maintain a sense of attachment and feelings of security and familiarity in relation to both homes and communities and reduces the overload of nursing homes.

The Aberdeen Kai-fong Welfare Association Social Service (AKA) is one of the 61 non-government organisations (NGO) under the IHCS. AKA provides a wide range of services which include home care, nursing and rehabilitation services for elders, people with disabilities and families in need (service users) in the Southern District of Hong Kong.

The pandemic of COVID-19 has brought significant challenges globally and locally. With the safety and distancing measures from the government, the scope of Integrated Home Care Services was restricted to essential services during the early stage of the pandemic. Apart from the suspension of services, other major challenges of home care service providers faced were an insufficient supply of personal protective equipment, an insufficient workforce, inadequate training. These problems have all led to infection control concerns for home care institutions and their staff. To combat the spread of the virus and maintain the continuity of services, IHCS providers applied a series of risk management measures throughout the pandemic.

The train-the-trainer (TTT) model is gaining increasing attention as an effective strategy to build a community workforce for health promotion and disease prevention. Training for participants from the same community they serve as lay health promoters (volunteers), can help build knowledge at the local level. Lay health promoters with training and supervision were shown to have significant impacts on community-based interventions. The training of lay health promoters and reliance on community resources simultaneously reduce the demand on time, resources and manpower from financially strapped and understaffed professional social health services in the community.

Limited studies were to evaluate the effectiveness of risk management measures of home care service and the needs of service workers, which raised concerns about the needs of staff working in home care settings and how service organizations continuously dealt with those challenges in this ongoing pandemic. Besides, the lack of training programs was systematically evaluated.