“Salute al Centro” –prevention for the elderly in community centres
The project in three centres for the elderly in the Milan area: the first results
The Azienda Speciale Servizi e Farmacie (ASF), a municipal company that deals with the management of municipal pharmacies and personal services in the municipality of San Giuliano Milanese, in June last year proposed to citizens who attend the three senior centres of the municipality a service of measurement of a series of vital parameters, on a voluntary basis, with the aim of raising awareness of prevention and demonstrating in practice the possibilities offered by technology for home care. Partners of the “Salute al Centro” project, which is expected to end in February 2024, are Comarch, with the role of technology provider, and CoopSDI (Cooperativa Servizi Domiciliari Integrati – Cooperative Integrated Home Services), for the management of the service through the use of devices and specialized nursing staff.
The meeting centres involved are those of Piazza della Vittoria, the Borgolombardo district and the hamlet of Sesto Ulteriano, all managed by the Municipality of San Giuliano Milanese through ASF. Here, four times a week and completely free of charge, those who wish can have their systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate and saturation measured, without changing their daily habits. In fact, there is no need to go to a clinic or pharmacy since the nurses with the devices always come directly to the senior centres at the same times on the same days. For each of the people who have joined the project, a personal diary is created, and then a monthly report is drawn up that reports the trend over time of the values collected from time to time. This report can be given to a person’s primary care physician for a more thorough check-up.
The primary objective of the project is to detect any health problems of citizens, prompting them not to neglect their state of health, without forcing them to change their daily routine or that of the relatives who accompany them. Another goal of the project is to improve the relationship between GPs and some of their most fragile patients: the elderly. The use of technology for home therapy in an informal context such as that of the community centre where they usually go to brings people closer to this type of application, without frightening them and allowing them to easily visualize its advantages.
“Many of the elderly who have chosen to have their parameters measured take our reports into high consideration,” said Vincenzo Frezza, president of CoopSDI, “and bring them to their doctors. In some cases, the tests led to the awareness of health problems that have led to more in-depth examinations and specific therapies.” In short, prevention has borne fruit.
“At Comarch, we firmly believe that telemedicine can be a very valuable support for the prevention and monitoring of diseases in the elderly,” added Alicja Warmusz, Senior Business Solution Manager at Comarch Italia. “Also in line with Italian legislation, we invest in the support that technology can give to institutions and citizens and we are honoured to have participated in this project.”
A year after its launch, “Salute al Centro” has collected the voluntary interest of 200 people, generating over 2,200 accesses to the App created by Comarch, for a total of 13,000 measurements.