Work has commenced on a £2.2 million NIHR-funded trial aiming to prevent deaths from high blood pressure, diabetes and chronic kidney disease in Thailand. The WIPH-led international collaboration includes teams from Chiang Mai University, the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand, and LSHTM, and will run till July 2027.
The project will pilot a ‘Learning Health System’ intervention, using patient record data to help primary care doctors in 16 practices in Thailand identify and improve outcomes for people at high risk of hypertension, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. Software tools, performance dashboards, training and facilitation will support doctors to work proactively with their patients to manage controllable risk factors and prevent disease developing or advancing. The approach has been successfully implemented by the WIPH Clinical Effectiveness Group with NHS NE London over the past 30yrs.
The programme will train local healthcare teams to lead the Learning Health System, creating a sustainable model that can support life-saving care and improve population health. Electronic health records are already used in Thailand, but the data are not easily accessible for frontline health workers to use to improve population health. This intervention will make it possible to use routinely collected data for the benefit of patients. If successful, Learning Health Systems will be implemented widely across Thailand, and could be adopted by other countries in SE Asia.
WIPH Professor of Health Data Science Rohini Mathur said: The programme combines CEG’s experience in delivering Learning Health Systems with the local leadership and expertise of our partners in Thailand. Together we will target specific disease areas where we know an intervention can make a huge difference to health equity and outcomes for the Thai population. Thailand has invested heavily in its primary health care system and the technologies to capture data about clinical care. We are excited to be working with colleagues in Thailand to close the loop and use health data for the benefit of patients.