Authors (including presenting author) :
Wong PLP(1), Lam WN(1), Hau V(1), Mok WY(1), Mok LC(1), Wong KM(2), Lo KK(2), Sin HM(2)
Affiliation :
(1) Department of Orthopaedics & Traumatology (O&T) - Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital (PYNEH), (2) Tung Wah Group of Hospital - The University of Hong Kong Clinical Centre for Teaching & Research in Chinese Medicine (Eastern)
Introduction :
Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine (ICWM) Pilot Programme has been launched since September 2014 in Department of O&T, PYNEH. Previous statistics showed that ICWM Pilot Programme has reduced length of stay, decreased pain intensity, and improved functional status of LBP patients. In order to monitor the (positive) patient outcomes after patient discharged, phone follow-up was implemented in April 2018 to evaluate the long term outcomes of the programme.
Objectives :
To observe and evaluate the effectiveness of ICWM Pilot Programme of LBP patients after discharged from hospital.
Methodology :
Apart from assessing pain intensity and disability level before ICWM treatments and upon discharged, from April 2018 onwards, the same patient group are invited to participate in phone follow-up 8 weeks after discharged under voluntary basis. For those who had withdrawn from the programme during in-patient stay would be excluded. ICWM nurse and supporting staff are responsible for conducting telephone follow-up, and Pain Log and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) are the tools employed for assessing patients’ pain intensity and functional status respectively. For those who cannot be contacted by phone within 3 tries would be considered as unreachable cases.
Result & Outcome :
From 1 April to 30 November 2018, a total of 93 phone follow-up were conducted. 67 (72.1%) patients were contacted successfully, 3 (3.2%) patients were contacting in progress (within 3 tries), and 23 (24.7%) patients were regarded as unreachable. Taking pretreatment scores as the reference point, the pain log was improved by 19% upon discharge and 41% at 8 weeks after discharged while the ODI was improved by 24% upon discharge and 69% at 8 weeks after discharged. The above results showed the LBP patients who have joined ICWM Pilot Programme have a sustainable improvement in pain intensity and functional status 8 weeks after discharged. Although the outcomes may be affected by multiple factors, the results illustrated that both pain measuring outcomes did not rebounded or worsened along with time goes. For achieving more promising results, further review could be considered in a longer period to increase the accuracy.
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