The aim of all care is “to protect health when it exists and to restore it when it is absent” (Ibn Sina “The Canon of Medicine” c1012). This ancient ideal of medicine is embodied into Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC). COPC is a cooperative approach to quality and cost-effective health care. It is a way of doing health that extends between people – as individuals, patients, families, health and care professionals, workers, educators – and systems and services in defined geographical spaces. COPC empowers, builds and enriches everyone in the community.
Emakhazeni local municipality rural areas lacked access to primary health care and relevant health information. HIV prevalence was increasing drastically and the number of high spot infection areas were increasing. There was a lack of transport for the rural people to the nearest health facilities and they were becoming ‘lost to follow-up’. Emakhazeni had only one mobile clinic which only visited the rural areas once per month. This meant that rural people had to wait till end of the month to get grant and access to primary health care services.
Due to high HIV prevalence and other chronic diseases, Exxaro intervened by introducing EMakhazeni Community Health Project Peer Education Program.
The main aim of the project was to support the public health system by training young people accredited health related course to service people in rural areas of Emakhazeni local municipality.
This is achieved through digitalisation and coordination of the care processes using Care Quest Mobile (CQM) platform by:
- Developing eforms on the CQM platform.
- Registering new household on the CQM.
- Creating a validation form for each member in the household.
- Making referrals to a nearby health facility based on the findings/outcomes of the screen.
- Creating eforms which will enable peer educators to do outreaches and offer health education.
- Tracing lost to follow ups through CQM.
- Conducting outreaches to the Schools, NGOs and the community at large and screening people through CareQuest.
Reference: COPC A Practical guide. Tessa. S Marcus. Department of Family Medicine, University of Pretoria.