The project aims to implement a national programme with a comprehensive approach to diabetes prevention and access to care for poor and vulnerable populations covered under the public healthcare system of Argentina.
The national programme builds upon experiences and results from several previous WDF-funded projects; WDF12-761, WDF14-937, WDF15-1314, and on a recently established joint implementation framework between Ministry of Health and the WDF partner institutions; IECS, CENEXA and UNNE. The programme aims to replicate and refine the models hitherto applied, rolling out interventions in a comprehensive approach at a large scale on primary care level, with activities targeting 14 lower income provinces and with specific priority of three provinces with particularly high poverty rates. The programme will be aligned with current and planned World Bank supported interventions for Universal Health Coverage (UHC), but with a specific focus on a wider and more comprehensive response to diabetes prevention and care.A key component of the programme is to implement capacity building through comprehensive training of healthcare teams at the primary care level. Moreover, the programme aims to increase and improve screening and provision of timely treatment strategies for people with a high risk of developing diabetes and those with complications of the disease. Another target of the national programme is rolling out large-scale community awareness campaigns focusing on diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in general. Selected campaigns will specifically target pregnant women for hyperglycaemia in pregnancy (HIP) detection, linking to current and new services offered. To strengthen early detection and care of women with HIP, a specific component of the programme will include capacity building of multidisciplinary health care professional (HCP) teams, HIP screening and patient education. Supportive supervision and monitoring visits will be conducted throughout the period of the project, through deployment of field-level coordinators within all targeted provinces. Moreover, a systematic patient registry will be a cornerstone goal of the programme, in order to control and evaluate care quality, measure impact and institutionalise systematized data collection in all targeted provinces This will in particular be facilitated through the development and implementation of a comprehensive digital health system, incl. electronic medical records.
- 507 primary care units and 34 hospitals strengthened - 5,376 health care professionals/community health workers trained- 25,000 people screened for diabetes- Four hospitals strengthened to provide HIP care - 15,000 pregnant women reached through screening and education initiatives- 3.5 million people reached through awareness campaigns