Prevention seeker Ghent

Following the reorganization of primary health care in Flanders, local authorities are expected to cooperate in the organization of integrated care. Integrated care implies that both the care recipient and the care provider find their way in the organization of that care.

From the primary care zone of Ghent, and more specifically the Care Council of Ghent, the need is signaled to a dynamic overview of the prevention offer. Care providers point out the impossibility of being aware of all initiatives, which means that people cannot sufficiently respond to each other. This also makes it difficult for healthcare providers to provide targeted advice or referral. This project aims to optimize existing tools or, if desired, develop a new tool. In order to realize this, this project departs integrally from the end user and therefore uses a human-centered design. The actors and stakeholders involved in this project are the Ghent Care Council, LOGO Ghent, the city of Ghent, Ghent primary care zone, care providers, care recipients, and others.

The tool would like to include various themes, in particular: Healthy nutrition, Sufficient exercise, Substance use, Gambling and game addiction, Health and the environment, Mental health, Vaccinations, Fall prevention, Cancer population study, E.a.

In a first phase of the project, the needs of the end users were mapped out through focus groups, in-depth interviews and an online survey (n= 174). This first survey shows that only 5% of the help and care providers systematically refer their clients to the preventive range that focuses on that healthy lifestyle.

These results serve as a basis for developing a prevention finder/tool. The results show that the respondents have very similar expectations of a prevention seeker, viz.

• The prevention seeker must bring together the range in one clear, user-friendly platform that must, above all, yield time savings.
• The offer must be small-scale, accessible and district-oriented.
• De preventiezoeker moet zowel voor hulpverleners als voor de patiënten zelf toegankelijk zijn. 
• The prevention finder must be accessible to both care providers and the patients themselves.
• Cost price, target group, reachability and accessibility must be stated with the activities.
• Important features are also a printable version and a Google translate option.
• The prevention seeker must provide an overview of the Ghent organizations that organize preventive services, with a point of contact and contact details for questions.

In addition, it appears that not only the city of Ghent needs a prevention finder: all primary care zones could use such a tool. Collaboration at Flemish level is the next step. The working group prevention Ghent, take the following steps.

Pending the development of a prevention finder, an overview page with low-threshold prevention offers has already been developed on the ELZ Ghent website: https://www.eerstelijnszone.be/gezond-leven-stimULeren-in-gent

60% of the survey respondents indicate that they are satisfied with this web page, which is an incentive to further develop and refine it.

If all care providers focus on prevention, this would yield major health benefits. In any case, the first-line zone in Ghent is already working on prevention and supports the inhabitants of Ghent to live an active and healthy life. In order to realize the shift to prevention, ELZ Gent also focuses on maximum support and training of the players from the care and welfare sector in Ghent. The development of a prevention seeker can be a particularly useful tool, not only for care providers, but also for the target group itself.