Vice Chancellery for Health at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences provides health care services to more than 4.6 million people through its Primary Health Care (PHC) system consisting of comprehensive health care centers, health posts, and health houses falling under it, in 23 districts of the province. Out of the said population, just over four million live in urban areas and the rest in rural areas. The flagship programs, in which health services are provided to people, are as follows:

1. Health education and promotion programs

a) “National Self-Care” and “Each House a Health post” programs: Recruiting and training health volunteers as ambassadors of family (500,000 people till now); organizational self-care, students, health ambassadors and health supportive schools social self-care:

b) Conducting fundamental health needs assessment studies; assessment of health of people

c) Implementing health promotion interventions and implementing advocacy for health
d) Management of health education media production

e) Implementation of educational and public information campaigns for health

 

2. Family and population programs

An age groups program is a comprehensive strategy for enhancing people’s health and well-being throughout their lives:

a) Infant and child health program

Care services in this program start from infancy, continue until the end of age 5 (three to five days of age up to 60 months of age) and include the following routine care services, which are done in 15 stages. These services are as following:

-Assessment of growth status (the measurement of weight, height, and the weight-to-height ratio), promotion of breastfeeding, exclusive nutrition, complementary nutrition, and oral hygiene, immunization and vaccination, assessment of evolution, vision, hearing, and genetic assessments -Screening for hypothyroidism, phenylketonuria, and evolution -Integrated care for pediatric illness and assessment of the status of common diseases in children (diarrhea, dehydration, pneumonia, growth disorders, earache, and sore throat) performed by physicians and health workers
-Implementation of a high-risk neonatal care program (neonatal retinopathy, screening and providing care to high-risk neonates at home).

-Implementation of an infant and child mortality prevention care system program for infants and children aged one to 59 months.

-Evaluation of ten child-friendly hospitals

b) Maternal health program: The aim of the maternal health program is to reduce
maternal mortality and complications caused by pregnancy and delivery and to  reduce perinatal death in the fetus and infant, which includes educational, consultation, and care services from the pre-pregnancy period to the postpartum period.
c) Healthy fertility program: A healthy fertility program that begins with marriage and empowers women up to the age of 54

d) Middle-aged health program: Includes promotion of a healthy lifestyle, empowerment of middle-aged people, and adjustment of a proper supplement consumption plan.

e) Elderly health program (for people over 60 years of age): Includes the two programs:
self-care training courses and the integrated care program for the elderly (including  cardiovascular disease risk assessment, depression, fall prevention, nutrition, colorectal and breast cancer screening), as well as providing the necessary supplements.

3. Improving community nutrition

a) Improving nutrition in age groups (children, adolescents, youth, middle-aged, and elderly) and pregnant women through continuous nutritional care, monitoring and evaluation of activities, nutritional consultations, and nutrition education and culture making in this regard

b) Prevention and control of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases through community education, nutritional consultations, intra-sectoral coordination (cooperation in training and retraining programs for health care workers, cooperation in related education and information mobilizations), and inter-sectoral coordination (nutritional support for children and women with malnutrition in cooperation with protective organizations, nutrition programs in rural kindergartens, promotion of home gardens in rural communities, improving student teachers’ nutrition at Farhangian University, training office employees and clergy students)

4. Prevention and control of communicable diseases

a) Preventing and controlling the epidemicity of communicable diseases such as Coronavirus disease, and prevention of endemic diseases such as Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

b) Providing free health care services to immigrants, HIV-positive people with regard to behavioral diseases, as well as people with high-risk sexual behaviors

c) Free screening of communicable diseases in target groups, as well as in Isfahan prisons
d) 100% vaccination of infants based on national program

e) Implementing the border health program in the health post located in Shahid Beheshti International Airport of Isfahan for all travelers going to and coming from abroad

5. Prevention and control of non-communicable diseases

Screening, prevention, and providing care of diabetes, hypertension, hypothyroidism, thalassemia, Down patients, inherited metabolic diseases of infants, colorectal, breast, and cervical cancers, neonatal hypothyroidism, evaluation of the 10-years risk of fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarctions and strokes in people over 30 years of active participation in national campaign of hypertention screening

6. Oral health

Providing oral primary and secondary prevention, educational, and therapeutic services to members of the community

7. Occupational health

Planning and implementation of supervision and inspection of industries and services and service workshops; identification, evaluation, and control of harmful factors in the workplace; measurement and analysis of harmful factors in the workplace; providing occupational health services to farmers, construction workshops, hospitals, prisoners and carpet weavers; review of reports assessing harmful factors in the workplace and adapting them to international standards; monitoring the plan to remove asbestos and mercury from the workplace; review, adaptation, and recognition of hard and harmful jobs in workshops, companies, and factories of Isfahan Province’s industries; and planning and supervising the formation and activities of the Committee for Technical Protection and Occupational Health

8. Environmental health

Planning and implementation of supervision, inspection and follow-up of environmental health issues, including air hygiene, drinking water, swimming pool water, ice factories, proper wastewater disposal, tobacco control in public places, hygiene of food preparation and distribution centers, safe environment of centers with ionizing radiation, hygiene of public places, schools, and hospitals, and waste materials management

9. Health of adolescents and youth

Physical, psychological and social empowerment of schoolchildren and identification and correction of musculoskeletal disorders in health supportive school programs

10. Mental health

Diagnosis and care of common psychiatric and psychological disorders, suicide prevention, providing psychological and social support in unexpected incidents and disasters, educating and empowering the community in the field of life skills and parenting, reducing the harm of substance abuse

11. Laboratory

a) Laboratory diagnosis of diseases such as AIDS, Malaria, Lyme Borreliosis, Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, and water and foodborne diseases (caused by El Tor, Shigella, Salmonella, etc.), and molecular diagnosis of Influenza and COVID-19

b) Culture and antibiogram of Mycobacterium (Tuberculosis and Leprosy)

c) Supervising the province's health laboratories as well as narcotics laboratories and occupational health laboratories (occupational medicine)

d) Cooperation with research institutes to diagnose emerging diseases