IPCRG 1st Euro-Asian Scientific Conference Bishkek 2018

IPCRG supported its 1st Euro-Asian Scientific Conference, 18-20 October 2018 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 

Fifty eight abstracts were received; more than twenty were presented as oral presentations, and others as posters.

The Organising Committee invited delegates to participate in the contest of young scientists. The competition accepted the work of young scientists under the age of 35 who presented results of their original research. The winners will be awarded prized named after academician M. Mirrakhimow. 

 

 

Who was the conference for?

The conference was for policy makers, primary care teachers and leaders and practitioners who wanted to learn about successful ways to build capacity in primary care to diagnose and treat respiratory symptoms and conditions. With financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, delegates heard about the successes of the FRESH AIR programme, and how you can implement in the Euro-Asian region, and learn from global primary care respiratory experts in family medicine and nursing. 380 primary care colleagues from medicine and nursing attended from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the Russian Federation.

Why Kyrgyzstan?

We have been working with our Kyrgyz team since 2013, when we secured a grant from the European Lung Foundation's Healthy Lungs for Life  programme to start to support primary care to address the high burden of respiratory disease in the country: in the current edition of the ERS White Book, Kyrgyzstan has the highest respiratory mortality of all countries listed. What is important is that this problem is recognised by the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health, which is highly supportive of actions to address the deficits in diagnosis and management of chronic respiratory disease, not just respiratory infection. And even more importantly, there is support to improve the capacity of primary care doctors and nurses to diagnose and manage CRD in the 1000+ primary care centres in the country. Kyrgyzstan is one of the four FRESH AIR  country partners and has been working to prevent exposure to smoke by exploring better cooking and heating systems, and implementing Very Brief Advice to treat tobacco dependence through both our Global Bridges and Horizon 2020 programmes; improving diagnosis through the online Spirometry 360 learning and mentoring programme with our colleagues at the University of Washington and working with a team looking at under 5 diagnosis (see their paper published in April 2018 here ); and Pulmonary Rehabilitation.

We had 8 objectives:

• To discuss the optimal system for the management of patients with respiratory disease at the primary health care level adapted to local conditions including clarity about appropriate roles and responsibilities for nurses, family doctors, and non-medical personnel
• To improve the practical skills of primary care clinicians, starting with physicians and nurses, to use the minimum simple and accessible methods (technologies) for timely diagnosis and treatment of RD at the primary health care level in accordance with national standards and within the framework of distributed roles and their competencies
• To expand training opportunities and strengthen the capacity of primary health care teachers using the "Teach  the  Teacher" methodology developed from EURACT and using respiratory diseases as the example, drawing on existing collaborations such as learning labs for Spirometry 360 tested as part of FRESH AIR
• To provide to policy-makers and clinicians an overview of the role and prospects for e-Health and m-Health, in lower income countries in primary care and remote regions, with a focus on m-Health, including an illustration of the potential to use smartphones in the identification of early stage COPD
• To increase capacity for implementation science at the primary health care level, especially involving young family doctors and GPs by running a workshop with a focus on quality improvement to improve the diagnostic process in primary care
• To present the results of the FRESH AIR project (funded by a research grant from European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 680997) to share experience and dissemination in the countries of the Euro-Asian region.
• To run a policy round-table to identify opportunities to change policy to remove barriers and to create enablers for improvements in respiratory health in the Euro-Asian region and to recruit commitment to sustain the developments of FRESH AIR.
• To strengthen the role of patients in the delivery of good quality respiratory health by inviting and involving them in the sessions to exchange experience and knowledge

 

Key Speakers

Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee: Professor Talant M Sooronbaev, Chief Pulmonologist of Ministry of Health Kyrgyz Republic, Head of Respiratory Medicine, Intensive Care and Sleep Medicine Department of NCCIM, Head of IPCRG team in  Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan National Coordinator of Global Alliance for Respiratory Disease (WHO-GARD), President of Kyrgyz Thoracic Society, National Coordinator of FRESH AIR study in Kyrgyzstan, Chief Scientific Coordinator of Euro-Asian Respiratory Society, Head of Kyrgyz-Swiss High Altitude Research Center, Co-chair of Central Asia PVRI Task Force (CAPH)

Our international faculty included:

Professor Niels Chavannes, Professor of Primary Care Medicine, Strategic Chair of eHealth Applications in Disease Management, Head of Research, Department of Public Health and Primary Care LUMC, the Netherlands, National Advisor Action Programme Chronic Lung Diseases of LAN,Planning Group Member of WHO-GARD, Principal Investigator, FRESH AIR

Professor Jaime Correia de Sousa, President IPCRG 2016-2018, ICVS, School of Medicine, Minho University

Dr Marje Oona, GP, Estonia and EURACT

Professor Pam Smith, Professorial Fellow, Nursing Studies University of Edinburgh and Visiting Professor, King’s College London

Dr Marianne Ostergaard, GP Copenhagen, and lead WP6 of IPCRG FRESH AIR

Dr Anya Poulsen, University of Copenhagen

Dr Thomas Nørrelykke, University of Copenhagen

Dr Patrick Sandström, FILHA, Finland

Dr Anders Ostrem, ex President IPCRG, GP and Department of General Practice, Institute of Health and Society, Norway

Dr Beraki Ghezai, ex Board director IPCRG, GP, Norway

Ms Cynthia Hallensleben, Department of Public Health and Primary Care LUMC

Ms Siân Williams, Chief Executive Officer, IPCRG