FK Asia Health Research Network
The FK Asia Health Research Network is an exchange program of Norwegian FK Foundation. The major task of the program is to promote the development of health research in epidemiology, community health services and information technology in health. This network was initiated by Nepal Institute of Health Sciences, Nepal, the Sekwa Eye Hospital, Sekwa Medical Development Services Co., Ltd. and Epidemiology Unit of Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand in 2006. In 2007, two more institutes, the Impact Foundation, Bangladesh, and the State Research Center on Maternal and Child Health and Human Reproduction, Mongolia, join the network.
Under this program, participants are exchanged to participate in the research activities in partner institutions. In order to maximize the benefit of the exchange program, partners meet once a year to review the exchange activities.
Hove Medical EPR development
The Hove Medical System, a second-generation electronic patient record (EPR) for family doctors and specialists in clinics and hospitals, is developed by the Hove Medical Corp., Norway. The Hove Medical System is logic for doctors and nurses and easy to use for health workers.
Hove has more than 20 years experience in this field and developed the most used first generation software in Norway and Sweden. Hove Medical can also provide a communication package for electronic data interchange (EDI) between units in health care, through which, referrals, test results like X-Ray results, blood test results etc. from other health units can be easily transferred directly into the patient record without delay.
The Hove Medical System is currently being adapted to the Chinese market in collaboration with Sekwa Eye Hospital, Beijing, with the support from CHIMA in standardization in China.
First Hospital of Tsinghua University: By working closely with the First Hospital of Tsinghua University and the Renmin University, the Sekwa Eye Hospital is establishing research team to support its mission for developing the higher standard eye care services and education nationwide in China.
Regional Health Research Network Partnerships in Asia
In 2006 in cooperation with the Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Tromsø, Norway, the Norwegian Embassy in Beijing and the FK Norway (www.fredskorpset.no) – Sekwa took the lead to facilitate the development of the FK Asia Health Research Network – a cooperation for professional and academic exchange with research and service entities in 5 Asian countries (Mongolia, China, Thailand, Bangladesh, Nepal) . The 8 million RMB program supported financially by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – exchanged some 30 participants over a 6 year period and gave valuable health research development support to its own development efforts and to its local partners (Beijing Capital Medical University and Tsinghua University) and other participants in this network. In 2011 it was presented as a successful case study in the OECD South South Opportunity Network and received a special for its contribution to South-South Triangular Cooperation by the Director of the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, Mr. Yiping Zhou at the 2013 Global South-South Development Expo (http://www.fredskorpset.no/en/newlsetter/yiping/).
International Diabetes Federation Partnership
In 2014 a partnership was established with the International Diabetes Federation (www.idf.org). The IDF is an Umbrella organization of over 230 national diabetes associations in 170 countries and territories. It represents the interests of the growing number of people with diabetes and those at risk. The project “The Diabetic Retinopathy project for the Western Pacific Declaration on Diabetes (WPDD) was formally approved in the IDF-WP Regional Meeting in November 2014 as part of the current Western Pacific Diabetes Declaration Action Plan 2012-2015. The Action Plan aims to improve the lives of those living with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) in the Western Pacific through targeted advocacy and education across all levels of society as part of the Joint WHO/IDF/Pacific Community Declaration launched in Kuala Lumpur in June of 2000 (http://www2.wpro.who.int/wpdd/downloads/wpdd.pdf)
Tele-Medicine Service:
In December of 2012, based on a common mission and vision, Sekwa established a broad strategic cooperation with the Da An Health (www.daanhealth.com ) a company wholly owned by the Da An Group of Sun Yat Sen University. The Da An Health, since it incorporation in 2004 is now among the three largest third party laboratory service providers in China. With a strict quality standard developed in close cooperation with the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI)[1] (https://www.ihs.com) – Da An Health owns over 1000 local laboratories and 5 regional laboratories in 6 provinces and supports over 4000 community health center laboratories. With a potential client base of some 58 000 community health service centers it is enjoying an annual growth of over 20% with annual revenues over 2 billion RMB. The main mission is to give high quality comprehensive laboratory services to the community health service system in China.
This main aim of this cooperation is to empower local community health service providers (doctors and nurses) the ability to give high quality assured diagnostic services. This is undertaken through a PPP initiative with local, regional and central health authorities providing a service package that includes the appropriate diagnostic tools supported by a cloud based training and quality assurance system. The initial focus and the basis for the model framework is the detection and diagnosis of Diabetes Complications of the Eye (Diabetic Retinopathy). Diabetes is the greatest emerging public health challenge in China with an estimated 20% of the population at possible risk and 10% having diabetes according to World Health organizations definitions. Some 30% of these are expected to develop diabetic complications. The project is now being expanded to an international partnership under the name Joint Clinical Practice International (JCPI) lending support with its a cloud-based clinical platform called MedLink Professional. A partnership has now been established with the Fundus Photograph Reading Centre Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison for the development of a China Based Eye Reading Centre under the auspices of the University of Wisconsin Madison Eye Image Centre – the acknowledged world leader in Eye Image Evaluation. The program has now established formal cooperation with several municipalities in Guangdong province including an initial 9 million RMB funding from the Guangzhou Health Authorities. Plans are now underway for the development of services for West District in Beijing through a cooperation with Better Diabetes Care International.
[1] The Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) creates voluntary consensus standards and guidelines regarding clinical and laboratory testing used within the healthcare and medical testing communities. These standards are accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and are referenced in government regulations and international standards.
