Primary
Care and Community Health System Development Center
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 2nd 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.
