Brief description
Today, due to a number of reasons, significant parts of the population living in the CB area, especially poor people, persons with disabilities and chronic conditions, suffer from low access to health and social services. In particular, the Programme area is characterized by:
- poor living conditions, low education level, and above all, a long-lasting poverty that affects also the health situation of the majority of the poor and of the vulnerable groups,
- people living in rural areas with limited access to infrastructures and services,
- limited availability of eHealth services, and citizens with low digital health literacy skills,
- limited availability of inclusive services (i.e., services designed for all) and of specialized services for such groups, and last but not least,
- the emerging phenomenon of CB medical tourism, putting often in risk the lives of many individuals.
In this challenging context, the Project Cross4all is aimed to:
- foster health literacy and digital health literacy;
- design innovative practices for tackling health inequalities and improving access for all;
- establish new mechanisms focused on the conditions of poverty, and services of comfort at home, including in rural and isolated areas;
- unblock the potential of health professionals and providers in offering care services to those most in need;
- promote joint strategies for developing integrated health and social care sans frontiers.
Cross4all is a CB initiative towards the establishment of inclusive health and social services, free of accessibility barriers, with particular focus on improving the management and CB use of the health and medical data of disadvantaged and high-risk citizens.
Overall, the project is aimed at increasing significantly the number of people that access high quality health and social services in the CB, thus promoting safe ageing, early prevention, and independent living for all.
In particular, the project will:
- study the gaps and inequalities across the CB area, and design joint strategies addressing the needs of vulnerable and special groups;
- establish an innovative prototype cloud platform and a mobile app for improving the access to specialised healthcare and social care services across the CB area (information, services, training, tele-monitoring), both for citizens and medical tourists;
- conduct pilot interconnection of the cloud platform with existing eHealth services (ePrescription, EHR, etc.);
- design and implement two pilots, in the municipalities of Ohrid and Neapolis-Sykeon, for offering preventive health and support, including health services at home in rural areas through multidisciplinary and specially equipped Mobile Units;
- deliver workshops and seminars for health and social care professionals and citizens across the CB.
The two Municipal pilots of the Project will serve as good practices, facilitating the transferability of the outcomes and results to the rest of the local authorities in the CB.