Remote Healthcare Service Provision

The cross-border area is a rather rural area including remote villages with difficult access to large urban centers where health-care units exist. As a result, the rural population does not receive primary healthcare services. The proposed project aims at solving this problem by providing healthcare services to the targeted population on a regular basis with an emphasis on prevention and early diagnosis.

In particular, the project will develop two mobile health care units (one for each country) staffed with a multidisciplinary team (a general doctor, a nurse and a social worker) that will visit the population on a regular basis. Each mobile health unit is expected to serve 128 patients from the first month and 100 additional people during the second month. During the first visit each patient will be treated by all the members of the team, the necessary tests will be completed, the medical history of the patient will be recorded, as well as their symptoms and proposed method for treatment. This will be executed according to a standard protocol especially developed for this purpose. The second visit should be arranged at about 15 days after the first meeting, while the rest of the meetings are going to be held on a monthly basis. Further visits depend on the population to be served and the type of services to be provided. 

Each region will identify the framework of the provided services, the ICT services that be developed and the patients data that should be recorded. This includes to identify the requirements of each region regarding the healthcare service provision of rural areas and the development of the operation plan and a business plan for the mobile units operation. Additionally, a digital system for the recording and monitoring of the patients’ health status will be developed. All patients will have a personal electronic health file. Patients’ medical history, exams and the medical treatments they received from  the mobile unit will be recorded.

The electronic health file will be accessible by the hospitals in case the patient need to be transferred there. The project has a major social added value as it provides primary health-care services to the rural population with difficult access to health-care institutions. The provision of primary health-care services leads to early diagnosis of diseases and their effective treatment. This results in the improvement of citizens’ health, in less hospital admissions and consequently in reduced costs for the healthcare sector.

Finally, the cross-border cooperation in this project is of great importance as it will test the effectiveness of the project in two different states with different healthcare structure but with a major similar problem: the difficulty of access of rural population to healthcare units. This approach will enhance the transferability of the project in other regions, countries with similar characteristics.