The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) has launched a “Pre­View Curb­side Check-Up” at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex. Ac­cord­ing to a press re­lease from the NCRHA, “this will fa­cil­i­tate the in-per­son mon­i­tor­ing of con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es through an ap­point­ment sys­tem by way of a dri­ve-thru.”

The Au­thor­i­ty al­so said that “the in­ten­tion of this project is to en­gage and mon­i­tor our con­firmed COVID-19 pa­tients to pre­vent and re­duce cas­es where emer­gency med­ical at­ten­tion is re­quired, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly less­en­ing the bur­den on heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed crit­i­cal ar­eas such as our ICUs.”

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from the NCRHA:

The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty launched its “Pre­View Curb­side Check-Up” at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 28th 2022. The project, which func­tions in tan­dem with the NCRHA’s re­cent­ly launched Pre­View app, will fa­cil­i­tate in-per­son mon­i­tor­ing of con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es through an ap­point­ment sys­tem by way of a dri­ve-thru.

NCRHA CEO, Mr. Davlin Thomas in­di­cat­ed that the ini­tia­tive formed part the NCRHA’s thrust to en­gage the COVID-19 bat­tle and cre­ate ways to en­sure health­care re­mains avail­able and ac­ces­si­ble for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, in par­tic­u­lar those in­di­vid­u­als with COVID-19 at home re­quir­ing med­ical in­ter­ven­tion, con­sul­ta­tion and spe­cial­ized mon­i­tor­ing.

“The health and well­ness of per­sons with­in our catch­ment area en­trust­ed in­to our care is of ut­most im­por­tance to us. We have been pos­tured from the on­set, to pro­tect and pre­serve lives. This agen­da has been es­ca­lat­ed dur­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al pan­dem­ic. Our staff must be com­mend­ed for their un­wa­ver­ing re­silience and pas­sion for health­care.

The in­ten­tion of this project is to en­gage and mon­i­tor our con­firmed COVID-19 pa­tients to pre­vent and re­duce cas­es where emer­gency med­ical at­ten­tion is re­quired, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly less­en­ing the bur­den on heav­i­ly pop­u­lat­ed crit­i­cal ar­eas such as our ICUs. The Pre­View app, along with this new­ly in­stat­ed Pre­View Curb­side dri­ve thru ser­vice are more than mere ini­tia­tives to us. Es­sen­tial­ly, these are life­sav­ing in­ter­ven­tions aimed at pro­vid­ing our cit­i­zens with the best pos­si­ble chance, be­cause we care.

The im­pli­ca­tions are un­doubt­ed­ly sig­nif­i­cant.” CEO Thomas un­der­scored. CEO is­sued spe­cial com­men­da­tions to the NCRHA Ex­ec­u­tive Man­age­ment team as well as the hard-work­ing and com­mit­ted team of doc­tors, nurs­es, pa­tient es­corts, ad­min­is­tra­tive staff, house­keep­ing, en­gi­neer­ing and the host of oth­er health­care fac­ul­ties that tire­less­ly con­tribute to stem­ming the COVID-19 tide.

Head of De­part­ment, Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency (NCRHA), Dr. Ki­ran Surage in­di­cat­ed that they rec­og­nized a vul­ner­a­ble co­hort of COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients in our com­mu­ni­ty, who tend to avoid health­care fa­cil­i­ties and many times seek med­ical care late, of­ten to their detri­ment.

The premise of this ini­tia­tive is to ad­dress the avoidant be­hav­iour that may arise due to un­der­ap­pre­ci­a­tion of dis­ease sever­i­ty and re­luc­tance to vis­it health fa­cil­i­ties, by cre­at­ing a medi­um through which they can ac­cess care ear­li­er in or­der to re­duce and mit­i­gate what would be oth­er­wise un­seen/un­mon­i­tored de­vel­op­ment of crit­i­cal risks.

The NCRHA’s Curb­side Check-Up was pi­lot­ed as an ap­point­ment sys­tem, tar­get­ing con­firmed pos­i­tive cas­es, with risk fac­tors for se­vere dis­eases (i.e. the el­der­ly, di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion, obe­si­ty, can­cer pa­tients, and the im­muno­com­pro­mised) as well as those per­sons who have had lit­tle to no med­ical sur­veil­lance or fol­low up.

Pa­tients ac­cess­ing the ser­vice, since the com­mence­ment of its op­er­a­tions have de­scribed it as ‘ex­cel­lent, quick and brief’ laud­ing the NCRHA team of health­care work­ers for the ini­tia­tive and ex­tend­ing them­selves to en­sure that pa­tients were af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with med­ical spe­cial­ists to ac­cess this lev­el of care and sup­port. “In a time where it is chal­leng­ing to en­gage and mon­i­tor pa­tients in the same way that we used to, we are find­ing ways to con­tin­ue reach­ing, un­der­stand­ing and car­ing for the needs of our pa­tients in this evolv­ing cli­mate.” CEO Thomas in­di­cat­ed.