HK Cares: Improving Older Patient Experiences in Hong Kong
This project proposal outlines a community-based initiative by HK Cares, a Hong Kong foundation dedicated to improving patient outcomes and experiences. The proposal focuses specifically on the poor healthcare experiences of older adult inpatients, who frequently suffer from cognitive impairment and a lack of adequate social support. The paper describes two planned actions — a letter-writing campaign targeting a local newspaper editor and the launch of a hospital visit service — alongside a two-week timeline, required supplies, relevant stakeholders, promotional strategies, and evaluation criteria. Success is measured through newspaper publication, policy initiatives, community feedback, and demonstrable improvements in older patient health outcomes.
- Introduction to HK Cares: Overview of HK Cares foundation and its mission
- The Selected Issue: Older Adult Patient Experiences: Poor experiences of older inpatients and community gaps
- Planned Activities: Letter-writing campaign and hospital visit service
- Timeline, Supplies, and Stakeholders: Two-week plan, resources needed, and key stakeholders
- Promotion and Evaluation of the Project: Promotional strategies and success indicators
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What makes this paper effective
- The proposal is clearly structured with distinct sections — issue identification, planned activities, timeline, supplies, stakeholders, promotion, and evaluation — making it easy to follow from problem to solution.
- It grounds the advocacy issue in a cited statistic (two-thirds of inpatients are older people with cognitive impairment), lending credibility to the identified need.
- The evaluation section ties success indicators directly back to the stated goals, demonstrating logical consistency throughout the proposal.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates applied proposal writing: the author translates a broad public health concern into concrete, actionable steps — including specific dates, named stakeholder roles, and measurable success criteria. This technique shows how academic advocacy frameworks are operationalized in real-world community health settings.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by introducing the HK Cares organization and its mission, then narrows to the specific advocacy issue affecting older inpatients. It proceeds through planned activities, a two-week implementation timeline, resource requirements, stakeholder roles, promotional methods, and concludes with a multi-indicator evaluation framework. The progression mirrors standard project proposal logic: problem → plan → resources → assessment.
Introduction to HK Cares
HK Cares is a foundation established by Dr. Patrick Khoo, a former university professor and practicing physician. This foundation was created to help improve patient outcomes and experiences — an increasingly urgent concern in the modern healthcare sector. Based in Hong Kong, China, HK Cares seeks to provide a wide range of patients with assistance that enhances their experiences and outcomes. Its establishment was driven by the recognition that improving patient experiences both during and after hospitalization is essential to better health outcomes overall. This paper presents a project proposal to be implemented by HK Cares in pursuit of those goals.
The Selected Issue: Older Adult Patient Experiences
The proposed project addresses the issue of poor patient experiences among older people in healthcare facilities. According to Goldberg and Harwood, two-thirds of inpatients in general healthcare facilities are older people with cognitive impairment and other diseases (p. 977). Because these patients are very old and face numerous functional, behavioral, and psychological challenges, visits from friends and family are critical to improving their experiences and outcomes. However, most of them suffer from inadequate support systems and poor-quality care, resulting in poor overall patient experiences.
Addressing this issue is therefore essential to improving the health outcomes of these patients and reducing disease burden in the community. The issue relates directly to advocacy, leadership, and course materials in the sense that concerted effort from community members — not healthcare professionals alone — is required. Community mobilization and the involvement of various stakeholders are necessary to create meaningful change for this vulnerable population.
Planned Activities
As part of community mobilization to address this issue, two major actions are planned. The first action is writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper in Hong Kong regarding the experiences of older adult patients in the region and explaining why community support is essential to improving their experiences and health outcomes. Through the letter, the goal is to enlist the editor's support in raising awareness of the challenges facing this group of patients, communicating what HK Cares is doing about it, and informing others about how they can get involved.
The second action is launching a hospital visit service through HK Cares, mobilizing volunteers to join in caring for older patients. This will involve initiating a five-hour daily initiative in which volunteers visit hospitals to entertain, read to, assist, and look after elderly patients. The initiative is designed to provide psychological, behavioral, and functional support to a patient population that requires assistance with daily activities. As reporting by CNN Health has highlighted, hospitalization can be especially harmful for older patients, making this kind of supportive presence particularly valuable (Gorman, par. 6).
Works Cited
Goldberg, Sarah E., and Rowan H. Harwood. "Experience of General Hospital Care in Older Patients with Cognitive Impairment: Are We Measuring the Most Vulnerable Patients' Experience?" BMJ Quality & Safety 22.12 (2013): 977–80. Print.
Gorman, Anna. "'The Older You Are, the Worse the Hospital Is for You'." CNN Health. Cable News Network, 15 Aug. 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2018. <
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