Health care in Alberton takes on a new stance
Alberton has served as the guinea pig for a new take on health care through working together.
THE Alberton Pioneer Integrated Clinical Consortium (ICC) is a ground-breaking group of medical professionals implementing a new model of health care focusing on providing patients with a less expensive more holistic take on health care.
The RECORD spoke to Dr Adri Kok, a major role player in the ICC’s work, about the workings and success of this new model of health care.
The ICC is in its eighteenth month of operation. The core system the model functions on is an internal communication between health care professionals, specialists, GPs, nurses and social workers.
The aim is to speak about a patient’s case in confidentiality between the members, giving them the opportunity to cover the patient’s entire health instead of focusing on specific problems as previous systems were likely to do.
Quality of life
Taking this a step further, they attempt to determine the root of the problems chronic and acute patients experience by identifying problems with lifestyle, surroundings and psyche.
Together the ICC looks at the disease profile of a group of people and identifies the problems this group of people have and potential ways to solve the problems. Working closely with nurses who visit the places the patients live, they can directly identify the problems at their source.
This focus allows the doctors not only to improve their patients’ conditions but improve their quality of life to reduce the potential problems in the future. Care for patients in the model doesn’t stop after the initial curing of their conditions. Treatment extends to fixing the source, be it a factor of their living arrangements or a psychological problem.
A workable system
The project itself came about as doctors identified the increasing cost to patients using the old systems and the effect this has had on patients and health care funders.
Modelling the ICC on similar models used overseas, PPO Serve, the parent body of the ICC, approached medical aids with their new model and convinced them to give it a try in Alberton.
Eighteen months later their faith in the system proved well placed as the results were positive, both for the patients and the professionals.
“The doctors love it,” said Kok. “There is not conflict of egos with doctors working together.”
The multidisciplinary nature of the doctors and health care professionals working together is a major success factor as problems affecting one part of the body can have its sources in other problems. The success of the pilot project in Alberton has led to similar projects being implemented in Pretoria and Durban as well.
Success
A success case Kok shared with us regarding the system was a young girl who was diagnosed with a drug-resistant case of TB meningitis.
Normally this would require her to be in hospital for the greater part of six months, severely affecting the way she lives, over and above the disease.
Through the interworking of the ICC, they were able to secure a place for her in a children hospice where, according to Kok, she excelled.
“She got all of her confidence back,” said Kok.
Further examples of the holistic approach working for the better is nurses visiting an elderly patients home who fell, and identifying problems that lead to the fall, preventing further accidents from happening rather than just treating the break.
“Communication is key in this approach,” added Kok. “It has allowed physicians to become consultants again, giving advice to one another for the good of the patient.”
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