Summary
The Integrated Care for Older People approach is an innovative program promoted by the WHO. It is a community based approach directed at reorienting health and social services towards a more person centered and coordinated model of care. It aims to support the optimization of functional ability in older people. We have tailored the WHO ICOPE screening tool version to our regional needs and implemented it in our national data system, which can be accessed by primary, secondary or tertiary care level. We have provided workshops for our multi-disciplinary teams to understand our programme and suggest their views. We have also provided Hands-on-training to our physicians by letting them practice on system screening tool, who will lead ICOPE clinic in community. We have taken recommendation from Audiology and Ophthalmology specialities to develop the same settings in ICOPE clinic or create an easy access to those clinics for hearing and vision screening.
Planning and Implementation
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What was the challenge you were trying to address?
Our efforts were across Qatar to support healthy ageing. By 2050, the worlds population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1 billion). The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected to triple between 2020 and 2050 to reach 426 million. This bring us to the need for an integrated system across the care continuum. ICOPE has evidence-based recommendations for health care professionals to prevent, slow, or reverse declines in the physical and mental capacities of older people.
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Who were you trying to impact?
Older people in general, Older people with chronic health conditions or disability, Older people with vulnerabilities
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What sectors were you targeting?
Education, Health, Housing, Information and Communication, Long-term care, Social protection
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Who else was involved?
Academia, Health Care, Social Care
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How did older people participate?
Older people were not directly involved
Lessons learned
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Please describe how collaboration worked in your initiative.
We have conducted a workshop in collaboration with MoPH Qatar, PHCC, HMC with WHO ICOPE Experts. The teams engaged in extensive discussions on how to adapt and implement the programme most effectively for patient population in the Qatar context. We had multiple sittings and discussed all screening tools which were being practiced at Primary and Secondary health sectors then we reviewed WHO recommendations. After careful review by all stakeholders, we have tailored ICOPE screening tool to regional needs. Audiology and Ophthalmology teams provided training to Geriatric nurses to screen patients independently in ICOPE clinic. Physicians from Primary care received training by ICOPE physician lead and HICT to get familiar with screening tool before official launch.
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What was the impact of your initiative on older people, their families, and/or their communities?
In Qatar, we are in the go phase and awaiting the official launch in 2023. It will help to get more information regarding intrinsic capacity and functional ability.
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What issues did you face, and how did you address them?
1st challenge was to collect all information from primary and secondary care areas to work towards integrated care and make ICOPE a standardized tool which all SME's will agree. 2nd challenge was to integrated this in our data systems with all screening tools. 3rd challenge was to provide training to multi-disciplinary teams to screen and document all data using ICOPE screening tool. All these challenges were successfully addressed with close collaboration and buy-ins from all the stakeholders and multi-disciplinary teams with frequent meetings, awareness sessions across health sectors in Qatar. The workshop organised with the WHO ICOPE experts provided an ideal forum for staff to review and tailor the programme for Qatar. The two-day workshop included multidisciplinary teams from both Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) who were given an in-depth briefing on the programme's benefits.
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What lessons did you learn from implementing this initiative?
Currently we are using Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) in our clinical area which was a free text tool but ICOPE will be a standardized screening tool, which is an improvement. In addition, evidence based tools are incorporated in the assessment that develops the capacity of existing system to measure intrinsic capacity and functional decline among older people. ICOPE will integrate care for all older populations in Qatar and will ensure easy access to care and fasten the follow up in community through our dedicated ICOPE - clinic care coordinator.
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Do you have any other reflections you would like to share?
N/A