HKPC Announces the Inaugural "Prudential Hong Kong Smart Health Action Index" at 49.8 - Room for Improvement in Technology Application and Personal Practice for Health Management

(Hong Kong, 20 April 2020) The Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) today announced the inaugural survey results of the “Prudential Hong Kong Smart Health Action Index”, reporting an Overall Index at 49.8 (maximum being 100), which has reached the “basic” level (≧40) but is still some way from being deemed a “good” level (≧60). It reflects that while the concept of people using technology to manage their health is starting to take root and some of them are embracing a healthy lifestyle, there exists room for improvement in practical applications and individuals’ health habits. 

Comprising of two areas: “Smart Health Application” and “Smart Health Practice”, the Index aims to understand the technology applications and lifestyle of people in health management and to explore the smart level of “Health Action” in Hong Kong. 

The “Smart Health Application” index is recorded at 48.4 at “Basic” level. Among its three component sub-indices, “Perception on Health Management Technology” records the highest score (69.5) in “Good” level, while “Adoption of Health Management Technology” has the lowest score (34.9) in “Insufficient” level. Respondents aged 25 to 34 score the highest in all three sub-indices, indicating that they are both frequent and most interested users of smart devices to manage their health. 

Meanwhile, nearly 30% of respondents have used smart wearable devices and 40% of them indicate they would use the devices in future. Respondents are most interested in using the devices to monitor activity level (62%) and vital sign (57%), while other functions of the devices, such as entertainment (32%) or display of time/date are secondary to them (14%). Also, for them, the top three barriers of not adopting smart wearable devices are attributed to concerns on data accuracy (63%), price (57%) and privacy (48%)

The survey also gauged the views of respondents on artificial intelligence (AI), finding health assessment (76%), health condition monitoring and alert (64%) and medical consultation (56%) to be the AI functions that the public is most interested in. If AI products feature these functions, the majority of those surveyed (80%) are interested to use.

On the other hand, “Smart Health Practice” index is recorded at 51.2 in “Basic” level. Among its three sub-indices - “Prevention”, “Postponement” and “Protection”, “Prevention” fares the best with a score of 66 in “Good” level; “Postponement” is recorded at 34.3 in “Insufficient” level. In terms of age groups, respondents aged between 45 to 54 performs the best (53.8), while the group aged between 20 to 24 only scores 40.8, dragging down the overall level in this aspect. 

Specifically, the survey finds that while the respondents score the best in sleep habit with 80.8, reaching “outstanding” level, the same cannot be said about their exercise habit, reporting a score of only 46.3 in “basic” level. A more alarming finding is that while 93% of respondents want to actively understand their health condition, the score on health screening reports a low score of 27.7 at “insufficient” level, indicating a high level of awareness but a lack of action on regular health check and monitoring. 

Mr Edmond Lai, Chief Digital Officer of HKPC, said, “The growing public acceptance of using technology for health management will bring many business opportunities in the smart health device market. Yet, product manufacturers need to keep advancing the technology regarding the devices’ data accuracy and security so that users can monitor their own physical condition, detect any abnormalities, and seek medical advice early in a secure manner. To this end, HKPC encourages the manufacturers to adopt a “security-by-design” approach to strengthen information security of devices during product design and production. It has also launched the GeronTech Cluster, named “GLink”, to strengthen communication between product developers and users for the development of smart healthcare technologies by offering services on engineering consultancy and product testing services. In addition, HKPC is developing a new IoT data analytics platform for Hong Kong manufacturers, including those in the smart health device industry, to monitor their production throughputs more efficiently.”

Ms Priscilla Ng, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer, Prudential Hong Kong Limited (Prudential), said, “We are pleased to see that Hong Kong people have sufficient trust and acceptance of health management technology. While we expect demand for health-tech applications to continue rising in Hong Kong, AI will be the key in empowering people to take greater control of their health. These findings further validate our belief that our digital innovation can help local community prevent, postpone and protect against the onset of disease, and we can play a part in transforming the way people manage their health.” 

Independently conducted by HKPC and sponsored by Prudential, the survey was undertaken from December 2019 to January 2020, with 1,500 Hong Kong citizens aged between 20 and 54 being interviewed. Quota sampling was adopted for face-to-face interviews categorised by age range.

The full report of "Prudential Hong Kong Smart Health Action Index" can be downloaded at http://u.hkpc.org/SmartHealthIndex.

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Mr Edmond Lai, Chief Digital Officer of HKPC (left), and Ms Priscilla Ng, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer of Prudential (right), presented the inaugural survey results of the “Prudential Hong Kong Smart Health Action Index”, reporting an Overall Index at 49.8 (maximum being 100), which has reached the “basic” level (≧40) but is still some way from being deemed a “good” level (≧60). It reflects that while the concept of people using technology to manage their health is starting to take root and some of them are embracing a healthy lifestyle, there exists room for improvement in practical applications and individuals’ health habits. The survey also found that 80% of those surveyed are interested to use AI for health management.