Webinar on Nov 21: how to tackle and prevent medical deserts with the Medical Deserts Diagnostic Tool

Webinar on Nov 21: how to tackle and prevent medical deserts with the Medical Deserts Diagnostic Tool

by | Nov 16, 2022 | AHEAD, Map, MDDT, News

On November 21st, AHEAD will organise a webinar about tackling and preventing medical deserts with our Medical Deserts Diagnostic Tool, which policymakers and others can use for evidence-based policy measures to address medical deserts.

Our tool includes interactive maps that visualize indicators related to different aspects of desertification in the focus countries of our project, i.e. Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia. For example, it shows the number of general-practitioners (GPs) in provinces in Italy, visualizing the density of GPs and therefore showing an indication of which areas (and their inhabitants) are vulnerable to the process of medical desertification.

Our tool also includes an updated working definition of medical desertification, as well as medical desertification index calculation methodology, which researchers can apply to their own research and/or context.

During our webinar on November 21st, we will:

  1. Share our updated working definition of medical deserts (based on our research)
  2. Show our Medical Deserts Diagnostic Tool and maps, and explain how researchers, policy makers and other interested parties can use these for evidence-based policy solutions to identify, tackle and prevent medical deserts.

It will be an interactive webinar with ample time for Q&A.

Moderator: Stefan Mandic-Rajcevic (data research analyst and medical doctor (University of Belgrade, Serbia)).

Representatives from the AHEAD country teams will talk about their experience with applying the Medical Deserts Diagnostic Tool in their countries.

Date: Mon November 21st, 2022
Time: 12:00 – 13:00 (CET)
Language: English
Register here: Zoom

AHEAD Newsletter #7 2022

AHEAD Newsletter #7 2022

by | Oct 31, 2022 | AHEAD, News

Watch the recording of our latest webinar on our country reports on medical deserts

On September 16th, the AHEAD team organised a webinar about the different manifestations – or ‘faces’ – of medical deserts in Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia. We shared the key findings of our country research on medical deserts in Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia with the audience. For example, we found several common root causes of medical desertification in these countries, such as increased health care need among the population and a low number of health workers.

It was an interactive webinar during which attendees were given the opportunity to ask questions. We were also pleased that Katarzyna Ptak Bufkens of the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission kicked off the webinar with a compelling keynote speech!  

Watch the recording of the webinar on our website. 

You can read our country reports on our website as well.  

Why the consensus building methodology is essential for health workforce policies

One of our project’s unique selling points is our participatory consensus building methodology.  

Literature shows that successful implementation of health workforce policies requires strong inter-sectoral governance and consensus building among the different stakeholders involved. We have therefore set out to draft, test and validate a consensus building methodology, in order to increase the chances of successfully counteracting medical deserts. 

Want to know more about what this methodology – developed under the leadership of our partner VU Athena Institute, and contributed by all partners- entails? Have a look at our presentation.  

After nearly 2 years, a wonderful AHEAD team meeting in Amsterdam! 

Even though we started working together since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the AHEAD partners never got to meet each other in person… until last month! We had two fruitful in-depth strategic programme days at the Wemos (AHEAD lead partner organisation) office, and concluded the first day with a great team outing in the city of Amsterdam! Thank you to all AHEAD partners! 

(A)heads up: our next webinar will take place on November 21st at 12.00-13.00! 

Stay tuned for more information! 

AHEAD-Media Education Centre, Obilicev venac 21, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Copyright © 2021 AHEAD, all rights reserved
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Recording AHEAD webinar on medical deserts

Recording AHEAD webinar on medical deserts

by | Sep 24, 2022 | News

On September 16th, Wemos and our partners in the project Action for Health and Equity: Addressing medical Deserts (AHEAD) organised a webinar about the different manifestations – or ‘faces’ – of medical deserts in Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia. The recording of our webinar is now available on our YouTube channel.

We shared the key findings of our country research on medical deserts in Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia with the audience. For example, we found several common ‘root causes’ of medical desertification in the abovementioned countries: increased health care need among the population and a low number of health workers. In addition, we also found common ‘themes’, based on the interviews we held with stakeholders in the said countries: low familiarity with the term ‘medical deserts’, and insufficient mitigation, solutions and strategies on the national and local level (i.e. no clear ownership of the problem or solution).

It was an interactive webinar, during which there was room for questions from the audience. Stefan Mandic-Rajcevic, data research analyst at the University of Belgrade and one of our AHEAD team members in Serbia, was our moderator. Our speakers were:

 

  • Keynote speech (by Katarzyna Ptak Bufkens – Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, European Commission)
  • Medical deserts: definition and methodology (by Dana Farcasanu –Center for Health Policies and Services)
  • Country findings: Italy, Moldova, Serbia, Romania, the Netherlands (by Aysel Rahimli – Wemos)
AHEAD Newsletter #6 2022

AHEAD Newsletter #6 2022

by | Sep 1, 2022 | News, Newsletter

Understanding medical desertification through consensus-building sessions in Campania and Sicily (Italy)

 

Medical deserts are still an unknown concept in Italy. This is one of the conclusions from AHEAD partner Cittadinanzattiva’s research on medical deserts and their pilot project activities on consensus-building in Campania and Sicily. During these local consensus-building sessions, Cittadinanzattiva interviewed local stakeholders about their understanding of and perspectives on medical desertification in the two regions in Italy. The outcomes of these sessions confirmed what Cittadinanzattiva found through an analysis of the shortcomings of territorial assistance in Italy. Cittadinanzattiva identified several common patterns and trends which implicitly refer to medical desertification. Above all, three main characteristics in most research articles were: shortage of healthcare personnel, insufficient healthcare services, and lack of adequate territorial assistance, especially in underserved areas. Other key factors involve uneven and fragmented regional health services in rural areas, poor access to medical care and services, scarce prevention and follow-up, and acute hospitals and medical facilities unable to adequately meet safety and quality standards. Geography also appeared to be a key determinant; in fact, distance and rurality represent barriers of cost, time and inconvenience for patients in accessing primary care and prevention. AHEAD will use these findings for wider/national sessions, to ultimately achieve co-created policy options to address medical deserts.

The Italian paper Il Mattino published an item about AHEAD, you can read it here (in Italian).

How can participatory consensus building contribute to successful policies to counteract medical deserts?

One of AHEAD’s unique selling points is our participatory consensus building methodology.

It is known from literature that successful implementation of health workforce policies requires strong inter-sectoral governance and consensus building among the different stakeholders involved. As a consortium, we have therefore set out to draft, test and validate a consensus building methodology, in order to increase the chances of successfully counteracting medical deserts.

With the consensus building methodology, we aim to achieve the following:

  • Implemented in the AHEAD partners’ countries, it contributes to the identification and development of practical, feasible and context-specific policy options, that will support policy makers in their decisions on health workforce issues.
  • Implemented, contextualised and evaluated across the AHEAD partners’ countries, it will result in a validated methodology, that we will share in a practical guidance document, so that other organisations can apply the same methodology in their own context.

This method consists of two phases at local level and one at national level, all with facilitated dialogues:

Phase 1 (local level): Dialogues among groups of community representatives, among health workers and health managers and among local policy makers/policy implementers to discuss country research findings and set priorities.

Phase 2 (local level): Representatives from each group come together to discuss their priorities and jointly agree upon a priority of policies representing “the ideal mix of measures”, including advantages and trade-offs.

Phase 3 (national level): Discuss and select measures in a dialogue between local and national level policy makers.

We will share more on consensus building on a new page on our website. Stay tuned!

Join our webinar on September 16: What are medical deserts and how do we find them?

During an interactive webinar on September 16th – with a keynote speech from Katarzyna Ptak-Bufkens of the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (European Commission) – we will share key takeaways from our country reports on medical deserts in the countries on which AHEAD focuses on: Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia.

Aysel Rahimli, project coordinator of the AHEAD project at Wemos, will present our country report findings. Stefan Mandic-Rajcevic, data research analyst with an MD from the University of Belgrade and a Ph.D. in Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene from the University of Milan (Italy), and part of AHEAD partner Media Education Center, will moderate the webinar.

During the webinar, we will:

  1. Show the different manifestations (‘faces’) of medical deserts in Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia.
  2. Share the key findings of our country reports on medical deserts in the abovementioned countries.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Date: Friday September 16th, 2022
Time: 10:30 – 11:30AM (CET)
Language: English
Register here!

Our contribution to the European Health Parliament’s 7th round of policy recommendations on a resilient European Health Union

The European Health Parliament (EHP) has released the 7th round of Recommendations on Recover, Reinvest, Reinvent: Creating a resilient European Health Union. AHEAD project coordinator Aysel Rahimli from Wemos (lead organisation of the AHEAD consortium) contributed to the theme ‘Future-proofing health systems’, highlighting the need to address medical deserts in the European context. Read the EHP7 policy recommendations here; and the policy recommendations on future proofing health systems here.

EHP is a movement connecting and empowering the next generation of European health leaders to rethink EU health policies. It provides the next generation of European leaders with the connections, knowledge and platform they need to build a healthier and more innovative Europe.

AHEAD-Media Education Centre, Obilicev venac 21, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Copyright © 2021 AHEAD, all rights reserved
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Recording AHEAD webinar on medical deserts

AHEAD webinar on September 16

by | Aug 26, 2022 | News

Upcoming AHEAD webinar on September 16: what are medical deserts and how do we find them?

What are the different manifestations – or ‘faces’ – of medical deserts in Europe? During an interactive webinar on September 16th – with a keynote speech from Katarzyna Ptak-Bufkens of the Directorate-General for Heath and Food Safety (European Commission) – Wemos and our partners in the project Action for Health and Equity: Addressing medical Deserts (AHEAD) will dive into this question. We will share key takeaways from our country reports on medical deserts in the countries on which AHEAD focuses: Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia.

Aysel Rahimli, project coordinator of the AHEAD project at Wemos, will present our country report findings. Dana Farcasanu, Executive President of the Center for Health Policies and Services, will present our research and methodology. Stefan Mandic-Rajcevic, data research analyst at the University of Belgrade and part of the AHEAD team in Serbia, will moderate the webinar.

“It was fascinating to compares notes after the country teams had concluded their research,” says Corinne Hinlopen (AHEAD programme officer at Wemos) about the country reports. “For instance, we found that respondents in regions where the situation had already improved did not consider themselves medical deserts anymore, even though quantitative indicators were still below standard. Also, we discovered that there is a lot of confusion and unclarity about which institutions can be held accountable for which specific policy decisions that could help solve medical deserts.”


Medical deserts are areas with a low concentration of health services that result in unmet medical needs and increasing health inequalities. With the AHEAD project, we aim to reduce health inequalities by addressing the challenge of medical deserts and medical desertification in Europe. The team behind the project consists of the Center for Health Policies and Services (Romania), Cittadinanza Attiva (Italy), Media Education Centre (Serbia), National School for Public Health Management (Moldova), Wemos (Netherlands), and VU Athena (Netherlands). 

Join our webinar on September 16th, during which we will:

  1. Show the different manifestations (‘faces’) of medical deserts in Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia.
    2. Share the key findings of our country reports on medical deserts in the abovementioned countries.

Date: Friday September 16th, 2022
Time: 10:30 – 11:30AM (CET)
Language: English
Registration: Zoom

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