MoPH, WHO collaborate to establish integrated care for older people in Qatar – The Peninsula

MoPH, WHO collaborate to establish integrated care for older people in Qatar – The Peninsula

Doha: In line with the National Health Strategy’s Healthy Ageing focus, the Ministry of Public Health recently collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO) on a joint workforce training workshop for the WHO Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) programme.

ICOPE is a public health integrated care programme for people above 60, which aims to support the independence of older people living in society.

ICOPE propose evidence-based recommendations for health care professionals to prevent, slow, or reverse declines in the physical and mental capacities of older people.

The two-day workshop included multidisciplinary teams from both Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) and Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) who were given an in-depth briefing on the programme’s benefits. The teams also engaged in extensive discussions on how to adapt and implement the programme most effectively for their patient population.

Dr. Hanadi Al Hamad, National Lead for Healthy Ageing, and Medical Director of Rumailah Hospital and the Qatar Rehabilitation Institute at HMC explained that a key focus of the programme is to establish person-centred assessment and care pathways in primary care and improved integration with secondary care to provide specialised care more efficiently when needed.

“The benefit of ICOPE is that it is based on a simple yet practical