The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically highlighted the organizational and management weakness within the various healthcare systems, urging National and Regional authorities to intervene with innovative technological solutions that could guarantee a minimum of support to traditional hospitals and general medicine healthcare system.
In parallel, the difficulties reported by most of the patients (especially from the ‘fragile’ categories) to access healthcare facilities during the pandemic years highlighted the potential advantages and telemedicine and clinical tele-assistance.
In the light of this serious situation, Interreg CoofHea project set out to transfer a good practice, successfully tested in Puglia Region towards the Greek eligible regions.
This good practice is the Hcasa Covid19 Management System, introduced in March 2020 through TALISMAN project, funded by European Regional Development Fund. This solution facilitated the remote monitoring and health surveillance of the population forced to stay home during the pandemic.
THE SOLUTION PROPOSED BY THE COOFHEA PROJECT
First of all, the CoofHea Lead Beneficiary (Puglia Region) appointed the Regional Strategic Agency for Health and Social System (AReSS) to analyse the organisation structure of the Greek health system, highlighting the points of contact and the differences with the Italian one, and with particular focus on any differences in the management and processing of healthcare data.
Then, AReSS illustrated the ‘methodological’ approach taken in the preparation of the Hcasa Covid19 Management System technological solution, and its adaptation and insertion in a healthcare organisational framework.
In annexes, the main produced outputs:
- Short Report Assessment Greek Health Public System
- Status Report on the information technology of the e-health system
THE TRAINING COURSE FOR GREEK HOSPITALS
The third step of this action was the training course. Three instructional videos were produced and shared with the Greek beneficiaries, focusing on the three main components of the solution:
- the organisational model
- the technological component
- the privacy and data processing component.
Through these videos, users could better immerse themselves in the methodological context and better understand the rationale that led to the definition of the HCasa Management System. An overview of the whole programme can be retrieved here.
Finally, a video tutorial illustrated the practical functionalities of the entire IT and technology system in its most extensive version (not limited only to covid-19 patient) shaping the whole regional Telemedicine Centre.
In order to assist beneficiaries with any clarification or answer to further doubt, AReSS Puglia also created an off-line help desk. Project beneficiaries were entitled to use the help desk by sending an e-mail to the dedicated address the formal end of CoofHea lifetime.
This work allowed to create a cross-border and permanent network among the healthcare systems of Puglia Region in Italy and the Region of Ionian Islands, the Regione of Epirus, and the Region of Western Greece in the greek territories.