Implementing targeted cancer screening programmes in the Czech Republic

The Ministry of Health developed a national cancer screening programme to increase population uptake of existing screening services. Through this programme, health insurance companies proactively send at-risk enrolees personalized invitations to participate in cancer screenings; strong Ministerial leadership provided an overarching direction for the initiative, promoting alignment across key stakeholders; use of available data helped identify key problems and supported tailoring of activities to meet observed gaps in service delivery; national information campaigns, run through various media channels, supported efforts by educating the public on the importance of cancer screenings; the initiative prioritized a proactive approach to addressing cancer mortality, promoting a shift away from the reliance on reactive service provision.

Strengthening cancer screening in Montenegro

In 2008, the Government of Montenegro released the National Cancer Control Plan. Responding to recommendations proposed by the Plan, the Institute of Public Health developed a comprehensive cancer screening programme for colorectal cancer. Following successful piloting, the colorectal cancer screening programme is now being expanded to cover other priority cancers; partnerships with stakeholders outside of the health sector provided access to technologies and tools for engaging the public. Text messaging was the main tool used for outreach; moving from a reactive to a proactive approach was important for reaching and engaging the target population and increasing uptake of screenings; a strong information system supported a data-driven initiative design, facilitated implementation and enabled monitoring and evaluation.

Strengthening disease prevention services in Albania

The government, which was strongly committed to establishing universal health coverage, launched a four-year Free Check-Up Programme to introduce free screening services for chronic conditions; adopting a proactive approach to prevention was essential for reaching and engaging the target population (all citizens aged between 40 to 65 years); significant efforts were made to improve the systematic collection and monitoring of population health data; government support for activities, and a key partnership with the Health Insurance Institution to reimburse health check-up services, helped embed the initiative into the health system.

Telemedicine for housebound older persons during the Covid-19 pandemic

Hollander and Brendan highlighted the benefit to decision-making that may be drawn from the use of automated screening algorithms in prioritizing patient care to better allocate resources during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.  A strategy to screen older community dwellers at risk for home confinement-related adverse consequences must, therefore, be adopted based on an efficient and effective forward triage framework. In older community dwellers, assessing frailty is a definite cornerstone of triage, as it provides insight into the degree of vulnerability in their health status and their risk for adverse consequences. 

The Centre of Excellence on Longevity of McGill University (Quebec, Canada) designed, in late March 2020, a short assessment known as “Evaluation SOcio-GERiatrique” (ESOGER) for Montreal’s housebound community-dwelling older adults. It acts as the first step in connecting older community dwellers who are housebound during the ...

Use of Dementia Assessment Sheet for Community-based Integrated Care System 8-items (DASC-8) for the screening of frailty and components of comprehensive geriatric assessment

Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA)—a key tool for geriatric medicine—is commonly used to assess older people’s health status and frailty. However, performing CGA in outpatient clinics is difficult because the assessment of cognition, activities of daily living (ADLs), depression, quality of life (QoL), nutrition, medications and social conditions is time consuming and requires the cooperation of medical staff. Frailty—an aspect of geriatric medicine that indicates the weakness of the body—is a critical measure of older adults’ physical function.

The Dementia Assessment Sheet for Community-based Integrated Care System 8-items (DASC-8) is a validated and simple rating scale, developed for the classification of setting glycemic targets based on cognition and ADL for older adults with diabetes mellitus. As cognitive function and ADL are key elements of frailty in a broad sense and in CGA, we examined whether the DASC-8 category is useful for the ...