Primary Care guideline for adults Western Cape, South Africa

The Knowledge Translation Unit (“KTU”) is a clinical research unit within the University of Cape Town Lung Institute (“UCTLI”) which has spent 15 years developing the Practical Approach to Care Kit (“PACK programme”) to support and empower nurses, doctors and other health workers working in primary healthcare.

PACK Adult is a comprehensive clinical practice guideline that aims at equipping nurses and other clinicians to diagnose and manage common adult conditions at primary level. The starting point is any of 40 common symptoms, each of which provides the opportunity to identify one or more of 20 important chronic conditions in the second half of the guideline. These include infectious diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular risk, hypertension and diabetes, mental health conditions, musculoskeletal disorders, epilepsy and women’s health. See sample pages and contents pages below.

BMJ has partnered with the KTU to make the PACK programme available to assist in improving ...

Primary Care guideline for adults Western Cape, South Africa

The Knowledge Translation Unit (“KTU”) is a clinical research unit within the University of Cape Town Lung Institute (“UCTLI”) which has spent 15 years developing the Practical Approach to Care Kit (“PACK programme”) to support and empower nurses, doctors and other health workers working in primary healthcare.

PACK Adult is a comprehensive clinical practice guideline that aims at equipping nurses and other clinicians to diagnose and manage common adult conditions at primary level. The starting point is any of 40 common symptoms, each of which provides the opportunity to identify one or more of 20 important chronic conditions in the second half of the guideline. These include infectious diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular risk, hypertension and diabetes, mental health conditions, musculoskeletal disorders, epilepsy and women’s health. See sample pages and contents pages below.

BMJ has partnered with the KTU to make the PACK programme available to assist in improving ...

Good collaborative practice: reforming capacity building governance of international health research partnerships

In  line with the policy objetives of the United Nations sustainable Development Goals, this commentary seeks to examine the extent which provisions of international health research guidance promote capacity building and equitable partnerships in global health research. Theri evaluation finds that governance of collaborative research partnership, in resource- constrained settigns is limited but has improved with the implementation guidance of the International Ethical Guidelines for Health- related Research Involving Humans by The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS 2016)

Good collaborative practice: reforming capacity building governance of international health research partnerships

In line with the policy objectives of the United Nations sustainable Development Goals, this commentary seeks to examine to which provisions of international health research guidance promote capacity building and equitable partnerships in global health research. This evaluation finds that governance of collaborative research partnerships, and in particular capacity building, in resource-constrained settings is limited but has improved with the implementation guidance of the International Ethical Guidelines for Health-related Research Involving Humans by The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (2016). 

Increasing advance personal planning: the need for action at the community level

Advance personal planning is the process by which people consider, document and communicate their preferences for personal, financial and health matters in case they lose the ability to make decisions or express their wishes in the future.

There is a need for rigorous evidence to demonstrate wheter a community action approach is effective in estabilishing whole community adoption of advance personal planning. 

Building capacity in primary care rehabilitation clinical practice guidelines: a South African initiative

The large number of South Africans with disability who cannot access good quality rehabilitation presents a public health and human rights challenge. A cost-effective, efficient approach is required to address this. Implementation of high-quality, contextually relevant clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) could be a solution; however, this requires significant investment in innovative capacity-building.

The determinants of access to information on the Internet and knowledge of health related topics in European countries

The aim of this study is to analyze the determinants of access to health-related information on the Internet and their influence on perceived knowledge of health-related topics in European countries. Referring to the European citizens’ digital health literacy survey and applying structural equation modelling hypotheses, the obtained results showed that assumption of acceptance of information and capacity level are the main determinants which have the biggest influence on the perception of access to health-related information on the Internet. The access to health-related information negatively determined the perceived level of knowledge about health-related topics, which reveals that people making more use of the information are more critical in assessing the level of their knowledge. People who evaluated their health status as poor stated that they knew about health-related topics less. Therefore, the high level of access to health-related information does not mean that people would assume having more knowledge about health-related ...

Case Management - Making a Unique Contribution to Integrated Care

The International Foundation for Integrated Care Australia (IFIC Australia) is going to introduce their second Webinar series. The core mission of IFIC Australia is to develop capacity and capabilities in Australia and the Asia Pacific Region in the design and delivery of integrated care. IFIC Australia seeks to achieve this by providing a platform to develop and exchange ideas and promote activities in the region in keeping with IFIC’s mission.

In this case, this webinar will explain case management as a care coordination strategy for individuals. Quality analysis and macro to micro practice issues are explored through examples.

Strengthening primary health care: contributions of young professional-led communities of practice

Health systems that have strong primary health care at their core have overall better patient outcomes. Primary health care is key to achieving Universal Health Coverage and the broader health-related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. In 2018, at the launch of the Declaration of Astana, the World Health Organization formed the inaugural Primary Health Care Young Leaders’ Network. This paper aims to demonstrate the scope for young professional-led communities of practice in fostering support systems for young leaders and strengthening the delivery of primary health care at multiple levels.