Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are the top health issue around the world, including Thailand, in terms of mortality and economic burden of diseases. NCDs such as heart and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are the predominant killers in Thailand, accounting for 71.3% of all deaths in 2015. As a strategy to prevent NCDs and promote a healthy lifestyle among Thai people, NSTDA, the National Health Security Office (NHSO) and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) launched a collaborative project to develop a health checkup kiosk and have the machine installed at BAAC branches for public easy access to a primary healthcare screening tool.
The MOU signing ceremony of this project was held on 31 May 2019 at Thailand Science Park, with executives of three agencies -- Dr. Sakchai Kanchanawatana, NHSO Secretary-General, Mr. Kasarb Ngernruang, BAAC Executive Vice President and Dr. Narong Sirilertworakul, NSTDA President – and a guest of honor, Minister of Public Health Dr. Piyasakon Sakonsatayathon. The project aims to have 100 health checkup kiosks installed at BAAC branches nationwide by the end of this year.
Under this project, NSTDA will be responsible for developing a prototype of health checkup kiosk which can measure blood pressure, height & weight and body mass index (BMI), and provide an evaluation report and medical recommendations. The data and report will be sent to the user’s smartphone so that the user can take the report to doctors for consulting if needed, as well as uploaded to the cloud server to support big data analytics which is becoming an essential tool for the healthcare sector. NHSO will prepare information on healthcare monitoring and prevention to accompany the evaluation report for each user, whereas BAAC will have the health checkup kiosks installed at its branches throughout the country to facilitate public access to this primary healthcare screening tool.