Population Aging Case Study

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Population ageing has been an increasingly significant phenomenon both locally and globally in recent years. The main reason for this trend is because of longer life expectancies worldwide. The proportion of population aged above 65 in Hong Kong is projected to increase from 12% (0.8 million) in 2006 to 26% (2.2 million) by 2036.[7] The impact of such demographic change on healthcare service utilization can thus be fairly profound. Older adults are major consumers of Hong Kong healthcare services, the utilization rate for people ages 65 years and older rises almost exponentially.[16] In Hong Kong, the emergency department (ED) services from public hospitals are commonly overloaded with excessive patient presentations. The medical staff to patient…show more content…
found that need factors are the strongest determinant of health care utilization.[34] In this category it was found that multi-morbidity and poor perceived health status were the most important factors.This result was also consistent with international studies. The study also showed that enabling factors played a role in determining health care utilization, specifically for Emergency department utilization, poorer older adults tend to choose this health care service over others. Another local study focused on publicly funded health services, it also proposed that predictors such as need factors under the Andersen model of healthcare utilization has a strong correlation with utilization.[10] It identifies additionally other determinants such as severity of impaired ADL.However, these previous studies were limited to community-dwelling older adults and not particularly focusing on emergency department…show more content…
Like a local study focused on factors associated with avoidable ED attendance revealed that older adults who are younger and physically more independent, lack of social support, lack of assistance to obtain medical consultation, and being illiterate were associated with 'avoidable' attendance. [19] The study showed that for the general population, factors including affordability, general outpatient clinic time inconvenience and poor satisfaction from general practitioners (not diagnosing properly, no improvement after visiting) were associated with non-urgent utilization of ED services. Overseas studies on determinants of ED utilization in older adults indicated conflicting results. A study from Taiwanshowed that ED utilization of institutionalized disabled older adults was significantly lower than those staying home with informal caregiver[29], which contrasts from other studies[1] [28], while Gruneir et al indicates higher utilization from solitary older adults instead.[14] Moreover, disagreement upon role of education level in ED utilization was discovered from different studies.[29] [27], In addition, overseas study also suggests disability[9] and poor medical accessibility[29] as determinants for ED utilization. We hope to investigate on each of the

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