The healthcare system in Georgia is facing many challenges, especially regarding the quality and access to health care in rural areas. Caritas Czech Republic has long been working on the transformation to a modern healthcare system. We have increased access to free cancer screening, improved care for children with autism, provided IT system to monitor and effectively manage the spread of coronavirus, as well as secured effective organisation of vaccination against Covid-19. We are now introducing a modern IT system that will lead to the increase of quality and standardisation of primary care. We also support the development of telemedicine.
Central register
"Thanks to the financial support from Czech Development Agency and UNICEF, Caritas Czech Republic has been actively supporting the strengthening of Georgian health care system for years," explains Jan Blinka, the Country Director of Caritas Czech Republic in Georgia. "The development of comprehensive IT solutions is another key step to monitoring and evaluating the health care services. It will allow standardisation and improvement of quality and access to health care in Georgia. And that has, of course, positive impact on patients," he adds.
Modern health care system requires comprehensive electronic IT solutions. The one that Caritas Czech Republic is together with the local Ministry of Health introducing in Georgia serves not only as an electronic registration system of patients and provided care, but it also shares these data with other government information systems. It therefore offers the possibility of complex monitoring of the quality of primary care, as well as its standardisation. A number of rural ambulatories in Georgia do not have access to any electronic patient database system yet, so they can use this newly introduced solution as a database of their patients and provided care.
Digitalization of rural areas
The situations in rural areas is still complicated in Georgia, and their development still lacks behind. This goes also for the local healthcare. Until recently, some ambulatories in these regions had not even had access to basic IT equipment.
It is not easy to provide high quality treatment of common chronical diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure or cardiovascular illnesses, in line with modern trends and guidelines without the access to internet and lacking simple IT skills. Caritas helped secure internet connection to rural ambulatories and access to online medical training platform. Introducing a central information system is another step towards modern healthcare system.
New possibilities
"After the introduction of IT solutions in primary health care facilities, the doctors and other staff will get perfect digital tools to manage inflow of patients, follow their medical record from previous visits, and to refer them to the specialists in other clinics," explains Blinka.
Modern IT systems that Caritas Czech Republic is introducing in Georgia, proved useful also during the Covid-19 pandemic. One of the key tools to manage the pandemic was so called COVID Lab that we, in cooperation with the Georgian Ministry of Health, launched.
It is a specialised platform that allows the collection and clear organisation of data about new Covid-19 cases and results of coronavirus testing across the country. This way it was possible to effectively monitor the spread of the disease in Georgia, and manage it. Later on, we also launched an IT solution that manages the organisation of Covid-19 vaccination. The pandemic also stressed out the need of telemedicine.
Telemedicine
It was necessary for the medical personnel to first take a specialised training to be able to use telemedicine as a useful tool, and lower the risk of coronavirus transmission in their ambulatories. Within a few weeks, Caritas Czech Republic managed to train almost 1000 Georgian doctors in telemedicine.
We are now testing a Slovak made innovative telemedicine device Scase in the rural region of Dusheti. It should make telemedicine a lot more accessible. Not only in the times of a pandemic, but also in normal times, especially in rural regions such as Dusheti where there is no access to medical care. Scase is a multifunctional medical diagnostic solution that can be used as a thermometer, glucometer, pulse oximeter, and blood pressure monitor at the same time. It combines a digital patient database including reminders, tailor-made questionnaires, measurement, and drug-taking plans. The device connects to a digital platform that enables two-way communication, visualization, and transmission of patient vital signs data accessible by a healthcare provider, doctor, patient, and relatives.
“Scase will be a useful solution for strengthening capacity of rural medical personnel in the diagnostics of rural population in the areas where doctors are unavailable. It will significantly facilitate the management of chronic diseases in rural settings and will improve the role of nurse in the prevention and management of most common medical conditions,” explains Rusudan Chkhubianishvili, Caritas Czech Republic project manager.
Long-term support
Caritas Czech Republic has been working in Georgia since 2015. Since then, we have managed to introduce standardised medical guidelines, have been providing training to medical personnel, have opened a cancer screening centre, or increased the access of specialised care and inclusive pre-school education for children with autistic spectrum disorders. Introducing a central electronic information solution is another step on the way to modern health care system in Georgia.
The work of Caritas Czech Republic in Georgia would not be possible without the financial support from Czech Development Agency, UNICEF and ENPARD.