Asia-Pacific Patients Congress: Harmonisation for Patient-Centred Universal Health Coverage in Asia

IAPO’s Asia-Pacific Patients Congress is the 2019 regional event which will bring together the patient movement in the Asia-Pacific region. The Congress aims to bring together around 150 patient advocates from the region to share their insights, perspectives, experiences and best practices on the pressing healthcare issues in the region.

It is also an opportunity for IAPO to promote its mission to help build patient-centered healthcare across the region and to encourage the formation of national alliances of patient groups.

The Congress is organized by IAPO and co-delivered by its regional members the Psoriasis Association of Taiwan (PAT) and the Taiwan Alliance of Patient Organizations (TAPO).

Launch of online training in person-centred care

A free online training course in person-centred care in English is now being launched. The purpose is to give health care sector staff tools to help themselves to start working in a person-centred way.

Globally there is a strong trend towards more person-centred care, involving a partnership between the patient, the patient’s family and the care professionals. Person-centred care means listening to the patient’s own narrative and using it alongside other examinations and tests as the basis for a health plan.

Irma Lindström Kjellberg, Senior Adviser at the University of Gothenburg Centre för Person-Centred Care, GPCC in Sweden, who has created the course, says: “This is about the patient’s role as a partner, how staff and patients make agreements, and how to document them in a health plan” 

F@ce: a team-based, person-centred intervention for rehabilitation after stroke supported by information and communication technology – a feasibility study

Despite encouraging data about declining stroke incidence, on a global level the aging population and accumulating risk factors contribute to an increasing lifetime risk of stroke. Per the Global Burden of Disease 2016 Lifetime Risk of Stroke Collaborators, the mean global lifetime risk of stroke increased from 22.8% in 1990 to 24.9% in 2016, a relative increase of 8.9% (95% CI, 6.2%–11.5%) after accounting for the competing risk of death of any cause other than stroke.

Globally, there is a growing use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), including mobile phones, tablets and computers, which are being integrated into people’s daily activities. An ICT-based intervention called F@ce was developed in order to provide a structure for the process in stroke rehabilitation and facilitate change by integrating a global problem-solving strategy using SMS alerts. The aim of the study was to evaluate the ...