Page 66 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2016
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HEALTH
 RE-ENGINEERING
PRIMARY HEALTH CARE
The Department of Family Medicine at UP has developed a ‘high tech, high touch’ service- learning-research system that is re-engineering primary care through an ICT-enabled Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC) programme.
(Vodacom) and Synaxon. The device and web application support the routine collection and real- time use of health and service information, with the information gathered providing a systematic base for research.
The ICT-enabled COPC was first piloted by the Department of Family Medicine at seven sites in Tshwane district between 2011 and 2013, and since 2014, has been further developed and implemented with the City of Tshwane in Mamelodi, Soshanguve and the Inner City. In 2016, the Gauteng Department of Health supported by the UP Department of Family Medicine began the phased roll-out across all five provincial health districts.
Professor Jannie Hugo, Professor Tessa Marcus and Dr Hans-Freidemann Kinkel are directly involved in research into COPC through the COPC Research Unit. The areas of primary care that are being investigated include monitoring to inform, redirect, strengthen and improve services, and evaluating priority health care interventions with respect to their impact on local health, and in relation to provincial and national development goals and the global UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The COPC Research Unit is also involved in basic science investigations and big data modelling.
  COPC is an integrative and holistic approach to primary health that is scientifically informed and practice driven. It is guided by principles that draw on the best available understanding and practice of inclusive primary health care, which:
• Is built from and rendered to individuals and families living in defined geographical areas
• Delivers health care along the service continuum promotion-prevention-treatment-rehabilitation- palliation
• Integrates patients through the different levels of the system and requires and promotes collaborative multidisciplinary teamwork
• Integrates public, private and third sector organisations to make wellbeing, health conditions and health services a shared responsibility of service users and service providers.
COPC is enabled by AitahealthTM, a purposively designed, modularised device and web application developed in partnership with Mezzanineware
     COPC capturing primary health care information.
64 | UP Research Review 2016
Wouter Jacobs



















































































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