Project News

Project on Seamless Health and Social Services Provision for Elderly Persons (S-TOP) held the 3rd Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) at Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) of Thailand on 28 December 2020. JCC is the highest decision-making body for the Project. The meeting was co-chaired by Dr. Thongchai Keeratihattayakorn, Deputy Permanent Secretary of MOPH and Mrs.Suchitra Pittayanorasate, Director-General of Department of Older Persons, Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. Opening remarks were made by co-chairpersons, Mr. Takahiro MORITA, Chief Representative of JICA Thailand Office and Mr. Motooki SAKAI, Chief Adviser of S-TOP.

Eight pilot sites and two potential settings of S-TOP made presentations to share current progress of project activities. Pilot sites are supposed to develop a model for seamless care during the project period while potential settings are expected to implement activities similar to the pilot sites in the future. After the presentations from project sites and counterpart organizations at national level, Ms. Hiroka YONEDA, former Expert on Elderly Care and Rehabilitation of S-TOP made a presentation on "Mid-term Review" which was conducted during April-October 2020 to assess achievements in the first half of project period and develop a plan for the second half of the project.

The Mid-term Review highlighted that as it had been three years since S-TOP started in November 2017, it was time for the project to think about how to develop its model of seamless care for elderly persons by reviewing/considering the outcomes of project activities in eight pilot sites in the previous three years. In this context, the participants of JCC held important discussions including reconfirmation of stakeholder map of S-TOP pilot sites, and development of indicators for output in Project Design Matrix (PDM).

According to the presentations from project sites, acute and community hospitals implementing S-TOP's activities in eight pilot sites have been providing medical services including intermediate care by implementing the right measures to control COVID-19. However, there are still many patients who require intermediate care but cannot go to hospitals in order to avoid infection of COVID-19. Therefore, many sites focus on training and guidance of health volunteers or on providing telemedicine by smartphones so that elderly persons can receive intermediate care at home.

In addition, several pilot sites recently established a day care center under a Tambon level (sub-district) administrative organization. Although there are restrictions due to the spread of COVID-19, each pilot site was able to report on the progress of the project's activities.

S-TOP will focus on gathering lessons learned from project sites for the development of model for seamless care of elderly persons and seek possible ways to disseminate the model nationwide.