Empowering Patients and Community on Childhood Diseases

Abstract:

To ensure our children and families are able to understand and make shared decisions on the management of their illnesses with health care professionals, we started to publish a series of easy-to-read cartoon books with DVD on important paediatric diseases for the public since 2009.  

The preparation of the project started in 2008 and has now become a continuing enterprise with structured pathway for the production. The governance of this enterprise rests with The University of Hong Kong and the revenues generated will be returned to a fund for future production. The initial funding has been solicited from charities with missions in helping children; these include Children's Catastrophic Disease Foundation, Providence Foundation and SCMP Operation Santa Claus. Once funding is secured,  cross-sectorial collaboration from volunteers including paediatricians, nurses, therapists, school teachers, patients and families, as well as their support groups is most important to plan the content of these books and the DVD. The patients' organizations that have involved include Hong Kong Allergy Association and Hong Kong Paediatric Rheumatism Association. A production team from Action Communication helps produce the DVD which documents the patients' stories reflecting their personal experience, with doctors and allied health workers narrating the basics of these paediatric diseases. Cartoon painters help with the illustrations accompanying the text. Even the phraseology of the text has been meticulously edited to ensure lay public can easily understand. All these professionals only charge at the most basic cost. Forms Publications (HK) Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of  Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Limited (聯合出版集團) , is our publisher who has signed a contract with The University of Hong Kong, also share our vision and has promoted our series of 4 books on Eczema, Food Allergy, Rheumatic Diseases and Allergic Rhinitis.

Through this project, we have transferred our excellence in teaching and learning on paediatric diseases effectively and continuously to the public via multi-channels, including books, DVDs, public talks and press conferences.  More importantly through engaging the various partners of over hundreds of individuals and many organisations,  we have formed a very robust alliance which will continue for years to produce more books and DVD. The 5th book on Newborn will be ready this summer.