Why this initiative is important?
Primary care has been demonstrated to be associated with enhanced access to health services and better health outcomes. Community-oriented primary care is medical practice that undertakes responsibility for the health of a defined population. The demonstrated barriers to high-quality primary care are: under-resourcing, inadequate payment models, lack of community linkages, limited scope and comprehensiveness, limited integration with other components of the health system, and unexciting/unattractive conditions for physicians.
The nature of cancer control is changing, with an increasing emphasis, fueled by public and political demand, on prevention, early diagnosis, and patient experience during and after treatment. At the same time, primary care is increasingly promoted, by governments and health funders worldwide, as the preferred setting for most health care to meet demands of increasing need, stabilize health-care costs, and accommodate patient preference for care close to home.
Thus, it is timely to consider how primary care can influence cancer control, which has long been dominated by highly technical interventions centered on treatment, and in which the contribution of primary care has been largely perceived as marginal (Ref: https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/primary-care).
In June, 2023, on its 8.20-acre medical campus in Rampal, in climate-change-threatened southern Bangladesh, with the major financial help of Bangladesh Government Amader Gram Cancer Care & Research Center (AGCRC) will complete construction of the first two, three-story buildings: a 12,090 ft2 outpatient center, and a 14,728 ft2 diagnostic center. Based in these facilities, the goal of the AGCRC is to provide accessible and high-quality primary care for all 160,000 Rampal residents and self-selected regional residents before 2026, under a sustainable social business model.
Key components of the medical service system are: A well-developed, primary care ambulatory service model focusing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) with major paraprofessional-specialist conduct of routine guideline-defined processes, key point-of-care cancer diagnostic capacities, and immediate tele-consults, facilitated by a Bangladesh-circumstances-customized, interoperable electronic medical record system focused on major patient care-related functionalities, and wireless broadband connections using the Microsoft teams communication platform.