• Exchange, visions, experiences
• Opportunities to participate in professional debates, conferences, elaborating PPs, networking
• New connections, good friends, interesting information…

 

 

 

EFPC 2021 Bergen Conference

The conference scientific committee kindly invites EFPC members to submit an outline for workshops of 45 or 90 minutes on specific themes before mid-May 2021. Please check for further guidance PIE and visit the list of EFPC 2021 Bergen Conference – Themes for inspiration.

Deadline 1 May 2021
Submit your abstract here!
 

Expert Panel on effective ways of investing in health: Drafting group meeting on Mental health of health workforce and other essential workers
Herewith an upcoming opportunity to contribute EFPC input and expertise.
The first drafting group meeting on Mental health of health workforce and other essential workers took place on 4 February 2021.
The drafting process is very much in progress but some initial indications can be viewed in this minutes report.
Indicative timeline for the opinion's drafting process is lined-up, including a public hearing planned for June 2021.
More information

Call to Action: Vaccine Equity Declaration
In January 2021, WHO issued a call to all countries to work together in solidarity – and in each of their best interests – to ensure that within the first 100 days of the year, vaccination of health workers and older people was underway in all countries. 
This call to action is at the heart of WHO's campaign for #VaccinEquity.
Join the campaign to call on countries and companies to ensure that by the time World Health Day arrives on 7 April, COVID-19 vaccines are being administered in every country, as a symbol of hope for overcoming both the pandemic and the inequalities that lie at the root of so many global health challenges.
This call to action can be fulfilled by supporting COVAX and the ACT Accelerator to equitably distribute vaccines, treatments and diagnostics globally. 

The European Medicines Agency has published a call for tenders for the Quality, Efficacy and Safety Studies on Medicines.
The purpose of this Call is to purchase the services of research organisations to perform pre-and post-authorisation quality, efficacy and safety research to generate data and information to support regulatory decision-making for human and veterinary medicinal products. As compared to the previous Calls, the scope of studies that might be contracted to organisations selected through this Call has been extended to:

• Lot 1: Pre-clinical research
• Lot 2: Veterinary studies
• Lot 3: Statistical research
• Lot 4: Qualitative research
• Lot 5: Pharmacoepidemiological research
• Lot 6: Quality of medicines

All information related to this call are available by clicking here
Organisations may apply for one or several Lots and may submit joint offers. The deadline for application is Friday 30 April 2021 at 12:00 (noon) CET.

International consultancy to compile, analyze, and synthezise statistical and qualitative data on the status of school health and nutrition worldwide
Deadline for Submission: 12th April 2021
UNESCO’s Health and Education section is looking for a contractor (consultancy firm, research institution) to compile, analyze and synthesize in a report the best available data and evidence on school health and nutrition in all regions of the world, through a) a desk review of the literature with a regional or global scope related to the nature, coverage, implementation, results and measurement of school health and nutrition, and of published national policy documents related to the area; and b) secondary data analysis of school health and nutrition data from relevant international and cross[1]national surveys. The timeframe for this task is April-September 2021.
The assignment is estimated to require approximately 80 professional working days.

SAVE THE DATE - Interactive workshop to design a digital collaboration platform – 27 April 2021
The EFPC is a member of the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) official stakeholder group.
The EFSA Communication, Engagement and Cooperation Department asks for assistance in the design of a digital platform dedicated to improving interactions between you and EFSA and to facilitate exchange among the community of EFSA’s registered stakeholders.
If you are from a Primary Care perspective interested in food and how to communicate about food, please join their interactive workshop at the 27th of April.
The draft programme, background information and registration link will follow soon.

Call for expression of interest – NGO representatives for ECDC’s Advisory Forum
The Advisory Forum advises ECDC’s Director on the quality of the scientific work undertaken by the Centre and is a mechanism for exchanging information, pooling health knowledge, and furthering public health cooperation.
This call for expression of interest will result in the selection of representatives of non-governmental organisations representing patients, professional bodies, and academia to the Advisory Forum. The successful candidates will be appointed for a three-year mandate starting on 11 July 2021.
The Call, Application Forms, and Declaration of Interests Form can be found here
The deadline for the submission of applications is 16 April 2021.

New on Primary Health Care Research & Development (PHCR&D)

The implementation of the nationwide out-of-hours phone number 1733 in Belgium: analysis of efficiency and safety
Birgitte Schoenmakers, Lukas Delmeiren, Sjors Pietermans, Marco Janssens, Chris Van Der Mullen  and Marc Sabbe        
Belgium has a problem with inappropriate use of emergency services. The government installed the number 1733 for out-of-hours care. Through a dry run test, we learned that 30% of all calls were allocated to the protocol ‘unclear problem’. In only 11.9% of all cases, there was an unclear problem.
The study aimed to determine whether the adjusted protocol ‘unwell for no clear reason’ led to a safer and more efficient referral and to evaluate the efficiency and safety of the primary care protocols (PCPs). The study ran in cross-sectional design involving patients, General Practitioner Cooperatives and telephone operators. A random sample of calls to 1733 and patient referrals were assessed on efficiency and safety.
 

Final‐year undergraduate nursing students’ perceptions of general practice nursing: A qualitative study
Kaara Ray B. Calma,  Elizabeth Halcomb, Anna Williams and Susan McInnes
Conclusion:
Participants’ perceptions of general practice nursing varied, with some students recognising the diversity of the role and others perceiving it as limited. These views were often impacted by others experiences rather than personal experience. These variations underscore the need for students to receive greater exposure to general practice nursing. Review of undergraduate curricula to increase focus on preparing nursing students to work in general practice may help shape students’ interest to seek employment in this setting.

Community participation and empowerment in primary health care in Emilia-Romagna: A document analysis study
Luisi, D. & Hämel, K. (2021). Health Policy
Community participation and empowerment are seen as fundamental for achieving equitable, people-centred primary health care. In Italy, Emilia-Romagna region largely implemented Community Health Centres (Case della Salute), aiming to foster comprehensive primary health care and support community participation.
This qualitative document analysis explores the evolution of the meaning and conceptualisation of community participation and empowerment in policies addressing the Case della Salute. Three national and twelve regional documents dated between 2006 and 2019 were evaluated. Results reveal strengths and weaknesses of policy formulation addressing community participation and empowerment in the context of Community Health Centres. Building on these findings, recommendations for policymakers, researchers and practitioners are given.

Characteristics of citizens and their use of teleconsultation in Primary Care in the Catalan public health system before and during COVID: Retrospective Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study
Oscar Solans, et al; Journal of Medical Internet Research, Mar 9, 2021
This study identifies a change in the profile of citizens who use the eConsulta tool, which as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic now has a profile similar to that of the average citizen: actively employed, with low complexity of pathology and who receives more messages proactively from the health professionals through eConsulta. The pandemic has helped to generalize the use of telemedicine as a tool to compensate to some extent for the decline in face-to-face visits, especially in younger citizen profiles.

Community care staff attitudes towards delivering a falls prevention exercise intervention to community care clients
Burton, Elissa et al;
Millions of older people world‐wide receive community care services in their home to assist them to live independently. These services often include personal care, domestic assistance and social support which are delivered by non‐university trained staff, and are frequently long term. Older people receiving community care services fall 50% more often than individuals of similar age not receiving services. Yet, few ongoing community care services include exercise programs to reduce falls in this population. We conducted an earlier study to examine the feasibility of community care staff delivering a falls prevention program. A critical finding was that while some of the assessment and support staff responsible for service delivery delivered the falls prevention exercise program to one or two clients, others delivered to none. Therefore, the aim of this qualitative sub‐study was to understand reasons for this variation.
Result: Experienced staff who are confident and have positive ageing attitudes are most likely to deliver falls prevention programs in a home care organisation.

In the wake of the pandemic: preparing for Long COVID (2021)
Anna Sagan et al;
Areas to address include:

• The need for multidisciplinary, multispecialty approaches to assessment and management;
• Development, in association with patients and their families, of new care pathways and contextually appropriate guidelines for health professionals, especially in primary care to enable case management to be tailored to the manifestations of disease and involvement of different organ systems;
• The creation of appropriate services, including rehabilitation and online support tools;
• Action to tackle the wider consequences of Long COVID, including attention to employment rights, sick pay policies, and access to benefit and disability benefit packages;
• Involving patients both to foster self-care and self-help and in shaping awareness of Long COVID and the service (and research) needs it generates; and
• Implementing well-functioning patient registers and other surveillance systems; creating cohorts of patients; and following up those affected as a means to support the research which is so critical to understanding and treating Long COVID.

What Does Community-Oriented Primary Health Care Look Like? Lessons from Costa Rica
Ariadne Labs and the Commonwealth Fund collaborated on a case study on the primary health care system in Costa Rica, outlining lessons learned from the country’s multidisciplinary PHC teams of community health workers for delivering comprehensive care in both rural and urban settings.
Policy options for improving Primary Health Care

• Key enablers of the Costa Rica model — including multidisciplinary PHC teams, robust data collection and analysis, and ongoing quality improvement efforts — can likely be replicated
• Mobile technology and risk stratification can support patient access and monitoring, which might be especially useful in rural areas where connectivity and distance are both challenges.
• Community engagement in PHC models, through connections to community-based CHWs as well as community health advisory boards, can enhance feedback and participation.