Tahereh Jafari touched on PIHO diagnostic and treatment facilities, saying: "Today, healthcare centers, hospitals and clinics of PIHO are among the best healthcare facilities in Iran in terms of attention to the principles of health."

"The families of petroleum industry employees, like employees, need planning to receive healthcare facilities. To that end, the Family Health Division was set up in 2000 to offer plans and follows up on the health conditions of population under coverage," she said. 

"A family doctor in the petroleum industry has fared well in practice. It is not limited to slogans. The family health team, with a view to health programs, executives screening, prevention and diagnosis programs for petroleum industry families," said Jafari. "Attention to family health will help petroleum industry service workers do their job without any stress and with peace of mind in strategic units of petroleum industry." 

"To implement this plan, a health team comprising medics and paramedics was set up to assess and upgrade the situation of health in a specific population. After that, they carried out assessment of individuals, diseases and health factor risks in any age and gender group for classification," she said.

Jafari said: "After identifying the health situation of population under coverage, healthcare programs and follow-up plans are formulated and executed in different stages of life to prevent the incidence of diseases and prevent their complications."

Jafari said that health programs would be in full harmony with the conditions of the population with a view to preventing diseases and increasing the level of health in the society.

"In addition to diagnosis of risk factors and health threatening factors, our objective is to spare petroleum industry families any exposure to such factors. Or at least we can delay the disease or provide a chance for a better and high-quality life during treatment of diseases," she said.

Jafari said health booklets were being printed by PIHO Directorate of Health, adding: "The idea behind the printing of these booklets is to have a reliable and statistical source to present results of service packages and assess the performance of the health team. For instance, in the sector of diabetes care, 40 quality measures are assessed, each of which requiring 360 files. Monitoring such a big volume of data indicates precise control on healthcare programs."

She said healthcare programs in the country had managed to realize only 10% of objectives in containing chronic diseases in the country while PIHO has managed to meet on average 57% of its objectives.

"This organization is the administrator of health of the petroleum industry family and is expected to offer a different service package to help upgrade the quality of life. To that end, a variety of plans have been implemented to train the family health team," Jafari said.

She cited two examples of executive plans for the current calendar year, saying: "Family health training plan at PIHO hospital has been implemented in cooperation with cardiologists, internists, gynecologists and asthmalogists and we hope this plan would be extended to other areas in the near future."

Jafari said: "The plan for the presence of family doctor on the bedside of patients is under way in Ahvaz, Masjed Soleyman, Gachsaran and Bushehr where there are PIHO-run hospitals. That would help improve patients' health and satisfaction."