Article type
Abstract
Background:
The Philippines' Universal Health Care (UHC) Act mandated the Department of Health (DOH) to set standards for clinical care through the use of clinical practice guidelines and to shift to a life-course approach for comprehensive and quality service delivery and primary care strengthening. To achieve this goal, there is a need to translate National Practice Guidelines (NPGs) into utilizable tools to improve the knowledge, attitude, and practices of primary care providers (PCPs) during patient encounters.
Objective:
Describe the development of standardized, comprehensive health examination forms (HEFs) using a life-course approach through the translation of NPGs and national policies.
Methods:
NPGs and national health policies were reviewed and synthesized and then translated into comprehensive life stage–based HEFs for patient encounters. The HEFs were structured to optimize the competencies of the target users who belong to different health care worker cadres. Feedback on technical soundness, usability, and applicability was collected from relevant agencies, technical staff, professional societies, and PCPs and incorporated into the final HEFs before its adoption into an electronic medical record (EMR) application linked to health financing, for pilot testing in 3 representative sites in the Philippines.
Results:
The HEFs were released in 2023 and were employed to capture relevant health information during patient encounters. Using evidence-based NPGs, the HEFs were used to standardize the patient and clinical information elicited during a patient visit and to guide PCPs on appropriate age- and risk-specific screening tests per patient. Pilot testing through a health risk assessment mobile application demonstrated the importance of a standard and comprehensive patient encounter form to facilitate the delivery of quality primary care services, which are linked with health financing mechanisms and the local health care provider network.
Conclusion:
The Philippine DOH has taken steps to strengthen primary care and achieve UHC by creating standardized patient encounter forms and integrating them into an EMR application that enables clinical decision support based on evidence-based recommendations from NPGs and health information exchange across health care provider networks. The sustainability of this strategy, its effect on the quality of service delivery, and its impact on population health outcomes still need to be further monitored and evaluated.
The Philippines' Universal Health Care (UHC) Act mandated the Department of Health (DOH) to set standards for clinical care through the use of clinical practice guidelines and to shift to a life-course approach for comprehensive and quality service delivery and primary care strengthening. To achieve this goal, there is a need to translate National Practice Guidelines (NPGs) into utilizable tools to improve the knowledge, attitude, and practices of primary care providers (PCPs) during patient encounters.
Objective:
Describe the development of standardized, comprehensive health examination forms (HEFs) using a life-course approach through the translation of NPGs and national policies.
Methods:
NPGs and national health policies were reviewed and synthesized and then translated into comprehensive life stage–based HEFs for patient encounters. The HEFs were structured to optimize the competencies of the target users who belong to different health care worker cadres. Feedback on technical soundness, usability, and applicability was collected from relevant agencies, technical staff, professional societies, and PCPs and incorporated into the final HEFs before its adoption into an electronic medical record (EMR) application linked to health financing, for pilot testing in 3 representative sites in the Philippines.
Results:
The HEFs were released in 2023 and were employed to capture relevant health information during patient encounters. Using evidence-based NPGs, the HEFs were used to standardize the patient and clinical information elicited during a patient visit and to guide PCPs on appropriate age- and risk-specific screening tests per patient. Pilot testing through a health risk assessment mobile application demonstrated the importance of a standard and comprehensive patient encounter form to facilitate the delivery of quality primary care services, which are linked with health financing mechanisms and the local health care provider network.
Conclusion:
The Philippine DOH has taken steps to strengthen primary care and achieve UHC by creating standardized patient encounter forms and integrating them into an EMR application that enables clinical decision support based on evidence-based recommendations from NPGs and health information exchange across health care provider networks. The sustainability of this strategy, its effect on the quality of service delivery, and its impact on population health outcomes still need to be further monitored and evaluated.