Community Health Workers for Primary Healthcare Access (COMPASS) Project
The COMPASS-project is an FWO-SBO funded project which aims to improve access to care for people living in vulnerable circumstances through the support of Zorgcompassers, internationally known as community health workers.
Sustainable Development Goal 3 underlines the right of everyone to have timely access to primary healthcare (PHC). Even though Belgium has put various reforms in place to make PHC more affordable and accessible, inequalities in access to care are even getting bigger – creating the need for innovative measures. A new health care model should thus be designed and tested to link people who have difficulties accessing PHC (PDAP) to the existing PHC system.
Such a new model requires new fundamental knowledge, as former solutions have repeatedly failed. Since the country is also confronted with increasing health demands and limited budgets, there is impetus to tap into the potential of innovations from low and middle-income countries (LIMCs). A review of health innovations in LIMCs and a theoretical analysis on the required characteristics of such a new model resulted in a intervention with Zorgcompassers, internationally known as community health workers – inspired by the Family Health System in Brazil and Re-engineering PHC in South Africa. We hypothesise that an outreaching PHC model with Zorgcompassers will address the access-to-care challenges in Flanders, Belgium.
We will first study the interplay over time between the different barriers PDAP experience throughout the access-to-care continuum in Flanders (WP 1). Secondly, we will investigate the innovative PHC models in South Africa and Brazil to develop the intervention (WP2). In WP3, we will design a new outreaching PHC model which uses Zorgcompassers to improve access to care for PDAP in Flanders. In WPs 4 and 5, we will implement and evaluate the intervention in a cluster randomised controlled trial. Finally, we will also assess the cost-effectiveness of the intervention (WP6). Throughout this work, academic expertise from sociology, family medicine, and economics closely collaborates with committed societal stakeholders to join scientific insights and implementation knowhow, to optimise fit to practice and societal impact.
Team
- Prof. Dr. Edwin Wouters
- Prof. Dr. Hilde Bastiaens
- Prof. Dr. Nick Verhaeghe
- Prof. Dr. Josefien van Olmen
- Dr. Caroline Masquillier
- Laura Vroonen
- Emilie Op de Beeck
- Tijs van Iseghem