In the Name of God
Project Title: Participation of Tehran Municipality in Implementation of Screening & National Mobilization Scheme for Combating COVID 19.
Introduction
In order to contain infectious diseases, including COVID 19, learning about the health status of individuals in the community will be of great help to health policymakers and decision makers. On the other hand, due to the type of disease, its high prevalence, low experience of health care staff in relation to the virus, lack of facilities, limited opportunity to cope with the situation, lack of information and adequate education of the community about the disease, initial evaluation and review will play an effective role in crisis management, resource consolidation and preparation of the health care system in the face of this disease.
For this purpose, due to the establishment of health centers (one for every 12,500 people at city level) by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and information input about the clients of these centers in a special electronic system called “Apple” and the formation of electronic health records for these people in recent years, the outbreak of the Coronavirus has provided an opportunity to use this infrastructure to screen all members of the Iranian nation.
Therefore, due to the cooperation of Tehran Municipality with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in setting up health centers in different neighborhoods of Tehran and also local potentials under the control of urban management, based on an agreement between Tehran Corona Management Command and Tehran Municipality , the capacity of Tehran Municipality’s health houses, which are located in 352 neighborhoods in Tehran, should be used to set up call centers to communicate with citizens and record their information in the Apple system. In the meantime, the health houses in the neighborhoods will cooperate with the universities of medical sciences in Tehran.
Targets
1- Crosstown coverage of all Tehran citizens
2- Improving the knowledge, attitude and skills of individuals and families
3- Checking the health status of people within certain time intervals (healthy people, at high risk)
4- Accelerating initial diagnosis, disease prevention and reduction of implications
5- Facilitating the process of dispatching people to selected centers and units
6- Following up on suspicious and cleared cases
Work Procedures
- Launching an electronic website for screening citizens at salamat.gov.ir
- Launching 4030 Hotline for continuous contact with citizens
- Uploading self-declared information by citizens on the electronic website
- Contacts with the citizens based on the information available in the Apple system (These calls are made by the personnel of the health centers as well as the officials of the health houses of the municipal neighborhoods)
- Registering citizens’ information and providing basic training
- Referral of suspicious and exposed people to the nearest health center
- Evaluating and examining the people (subject to paragraph 5) and, if necessary, referring them to the hospital
- Following up the health status of the mentioned people by the health liaisons
Measures Taken in Tehran Municipality
1- Preparing all health houses in Tehran to create call centers (240 health houses are cooperating in this project)
2- Recruiting local volunteer forces (a total of 560 people participate in the implementation of the project, of which two hundred people voluntarily cooperate with 352 health houses)
3- Training of health house officials and volunteer forces by health centers
4- Preparation of database (contact number and national code) of local citizens by the officials of health houses
5- Telephone training and information registration in the system
6- Referral of suspected cases to health centers
7- Identifying patients with corona in the neighborhood and providing services and psychosocial support to these people in order to implement “stay at home” plan.
Vision
1- 100% coverage of Tehran citizens in the screening plan
2- Changing behavior by providing health-oriented training
3- Reducing the load of visits to health care hospital centers
4- Reducing the mortality rate
It must be noted that currently about 70% of Tehran’s citizens are covered by this plan and their information has been registered in the system.
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