Medicover
On 12 September in Warsaw, the project’s partners (Gdynia Health Centre, the Regional Chamber of Nurses and Midwives in Gdańsk and the Medicover Foundation) signed an agreement inaugurating the ESMS initiative. The project’s overarching goal is to improve the state of health and disease prevention in Gdynia’s schools. The ESMS system in an opportunity to guide in-school medical services into 21st century, and a way to make the work of school nurses much easier.
The cooperation agreement was signed by: Bartosz Bartoszewicz – Gdynia’s Deputy Mayor for Quality of Life, Anna Czarnecka – President of the Regional Chamber of Nurses and Midwives in Gdańsk and the President of the Medicover Foundation, Marcin Radziwiłł. The Central Chamber of Nurses and Midwives has also joined the project and offered its patronage.
The trilateral agreement presents a new approach to disease prevention in Gdynia’s schools. An important partner of the initiative is the Regional Chamber of Nurses and Midwives in Gdynia, ensuring inter-institutional networking and cooperation among the city’s entities involved in the provision of disease prevention services for the local community.
What Is the ESMS?
The Electronic System for In-School Medical Services is a tried and tested IT solution for nurses working in educational institutions, schools and local government entities. The tool has previously been successfully applied in the screening offered by the Medicover Foundation’s Nationwide Diabetes and Lifestyle Disease Prevention Programme, “PoZdro!” to 24,000 students from Gdynia, Warsaw, Lublin and Wrocław. The system was developed to serve the society – it is user-friendly and reflects the reality and requirements of in-school medical services as it was developed in close collaboration with the professional community of nurses and local government entities.
With the ESMS, nurses working in the education system receive a user-friendly IT system which matches their needs very well and supports them in carrying out periodic health check-ups of students. The ESMS gathers data, analyses parameters entered by the nurse and provides a clear answer by displaying the results highlighted in green or red (correct results or results requiring further consultation or diagnosis). The tool will enable nurses to inform parents by providing them with printouts of individual health status reports for each student. This will provide a clear and detailed picture of the student’s state of health, and facilitate a standardized mode of communication with parents and carers.
A Modern School Nurse
In-school medical services is the only area of the educational system which has not been digitized yet although Polish schools have been undergoing digitization since 2006. In 2018, 70% of Polish schools used electronic student registers as a principal tool for teachers and a channel of communication with parents. School canteens and libraries have also been digitized. The ESMS system now available for schools thanks to the Medicover Foundation is fully compliant with the GDPR and constitutes an opportunity to modernize in-school medical services. The implementation of the system will offer an insight into the state of health of students to a much larger extent than before. The solution will be adapted to the reality and the needs of students, nurses, school management and local government entities in particular locations, facilitating a more effective evaluation and planning of disease prevention programmes in the particular school and region.
Know-how and Development of In-School Health Care Services in Gdynia
After signing the document Gdynia’s Deputy Mayor for Quality of Life, Bartosz Bartoszewicz, emphasized that the city has plans to develop in-school health care services: “We wish to implement innovative solutions which combine diagnosis, disease prevention and health education in order to provide comprehensive health care for Gdynia’s schoolchildren. In particular, we want to prevent lifestyle diseases in children and youth in our city. We are convinced that with the help and support of our partners we will significantly improve the quality of in-school medical services in Gdynia”.
“I am happy that our Chamber has been able to emphasize the role played by nurses working in the educational system and support the initiative in collaboration with the other partners. The health of children and youth is our national treasure.” – said Anna Czarnecka, President of the Regional Chamber of Nurses and Midwives in Gdańsk.
Marcin Radziwiłł, President of the Medicover Foundation, underlined that “The Foundation’s statutory objective is to implement innovative solutions improving health care services for the society, with a particular emphasis on children and families. Our future depends on healthy children and future generations so it is very encouraging to see that we all care about their health. I hope that the know-how we have generated over the recent years by implementing our PoZdro! Programme will be a solid foundation for the development of targeted disease prevention initiatives”.
In their signed Letter of Intent, the parties to the document expressed their intention to cooperate for the benefit of school communities and families by raising health awareness and introducing solutions for integrated health care and health education. This will lead to enhancing the health of students and reduce their risk of diabetes or other lifestyle diseases. The launch of the implementation of the Electronic System for In-School Medical Services (ESMS) in Gdynia is planned at the end of October/beginning of November 2018.
Please find out more about the Electronic System for In-School Medical Services (ESMS) on our website: www.esms.fundacjamedicover.pl
