ศูนย์พัฒนาระบบสุขภาพชุมชน

CENTER OF COMMUNITY HEALTH SYSTEM DEVERLOPMENT

Director: Associate Professor Dr. Thanaruk Suwanaprapisa

Email: thanaruk.s@nurse.cmu.ac.th

Sub-districts in Saraphi have implemented their health disparities actions plans under the guidance of FON faculty. On 25 March, a project midpoint community forum was held to allow all sub-districts to share experiences and lessons learned. Due to the resounding success of this groundbreaking project which centralizes complete household health data for district health providers and uses GIS, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation has provided funding to expand this project to an additional 51 districts in Thailand under the supervision and guidance of the Center. The project expansion is led by Assistant Professor Dr. Waraporn Boonchieng, under consultation from Associate Professor Wilawan Senaratana and Dr.Jaras Singkeaw (Director of Saraphi Hospital). Throughout October through April, Center faculty and staff have met with interested districts in all parts of Thailand and close to 60 districts have applied for support in implementing the project. Certain provinces such as Phitsanulok, have partnered with local universities (Naresuan University) for assistance in implementing the project. Provinces that cannot establish partnerships will receive technical assistance from the Center. The following provinces are taking part in the expansion project: South - Trang, Pattani, Narathiwat, Phatthalung, Songkla, and Satun; Northeast– Khon Kaen, Nong Khai, and Sakon Nakhon; Central – Nakhon Nayok, Saraburi, Pathumthani, and Nonthaburi. Chiang Mai, Sakon Nakhon, and Phitsanulok provinces wish for full coverage in every district.

Several oral presentations about the Saraphi Project were made at the recent Faculty of Nursing conference on “The Future of Population’s Health: Transcultural Nursing and Health Care Quality this past February.  There has been great international interest in the project as well. Several countries, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, US, and several countries in Europe, have met with Center faculty and staff to learn about and observe the Saraphi project. In September, Assoc. Prof. Wilawan Senaratana and Associate Professor Dr. Ekkarat Boonchieng from the Faculty of Science (and key developer of the Saraphi Health Application) were invited by Skoll Global Threats Fund to give a presentation on the Saraphi Project at the 2^nd International Conference on Digital Disease Detection in San Francisco, USA and to discuss a potential collaboration in creating a digital disease detection system in Thailand. A follow-up meeting was held in Chiang Mai on 4-7 March and included the Chiang Mai Provincial Public Health Office, CMU Faculty of Veterinary Medicine as well as the Computer Science Department from the CMU Faculty of Science. Once developed, the digital disease detection system would be piloted in Saraphi and then expanded to the rest of Chiang Mai province.​