Education and Training

Information and communication technology can play a vital role in training healthcare professionals, across the board - in nursing schools, medical schools, urban settings, and even in rural areas where it is often needed the most, in remote hospitals, health centers and dispensaries that are under-staffed and where the addressable population is scattered. [from author]

At a time when the world is facing a shortage of health workers, policymakers are looking for innovative strategies that can help them develop policy and programmes to bolster the global health workforce. This document highlights the current status of interprofessional collaboration around the world, identifies the mechanisms that shape successful collaborative teamwork and outlines a series of action items that policymakers can apply within their local health system.

Working in a hospital during an extraordinary infectious disease outbreak can cause significant stress and contribute to healthcare workers choosing to reduce patient contact. Psychological training of healthcare workers prior to an influenza pandemic may reduce stress-related absenteeism, however, established training methods that change behavior and attitudes are too resource-intensive for widespread use.

This article describes a health management delivery program in which north and south institutions collaborated to integrate classroom and field-based training in health management and to transfer the capacity for sustaining management development in Liberia. [adapted from abstract]

In this article we analyse Brazil’s 80 year old public health course via its history, disciplines, organization and characteristics of the student body in order to gain an insight into the development of public health in Brazil and to highlight the progress of education for professionals in this field. [adapted from author]

This paper reviews available research evidence that links medical students’ characteristics with human resource imbalances and the contribution of medical schools in perpetuating an inequitable distribution of the health workforce. [from abstract]

This study focused on a trained health workforce in Northern Uganda. The retention of specifically-trained staff 12-15 months after attending training was examined, as was the relevance and usefulness of the training as perceived by the health workers. [from abstract]

The function of this meeting was to gather information on medical and nursing education, including learning from countries and institutions where innovative solutions are already being tested and implemented. The information, summarized in this meeting report, will inform the the development of evidence-based policy guidance that will serve to support countries in their efforts to scale up medical and nursing education. [adapted from author]

Interactive methods like role play, recorded video scenarios and objective structured clinical exam are being regularly used to teach and assess communication skills of medical students in the western world. In developing countries however, they are still in the preliminary phases of execution in most institutes. Our study was conducted in a naive under resourced setup to assess the impact of such teaching methodologies on the counseling skills of medical students. [from abstract]

The purpose of this study was to conduct a comparative evaluation of two internet-based continuing medical education delivery formats and the effect on satisfaction, knowledge and confidence outcomes. [from abstract]

This study evaluated the effect of an educational program including peer discussions on the providers’ knowledge and reported performance in family planning services. [from abstract]

This article aims to produce theory driven criteria to guide the development and evaluation of internet-based medical courses. [from abstract]

This report documents the efficiency of the Learning for Performance approach in the implementation of new pre-service reproductive health/family planning and child health training modules aimed at local health technicians working in Northern Mali. [adapted from introduction]

The Capacity Project used the Learning for Performance (LFP) approach to develop the family planning (FP), HIV/AIDS and gender components included in the competency-based A1 nursing and midwifery pre-service curricula. LFP was also used to adapt the Rwanda national FP curriculum to an on-the-job training approach. This study documents the implementation of the and the lessons learned from its application in preservice education and in-service training in Rwanda. [from summary]

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been suggested as a key educational method of knowledge acquisition to improve medical education. This study sought to evaluate the differences in medical school education between graduates from PBL-based and conventional curricula and to what extent these curricula fit job requirements. [from abstract]

The Ministry of Health introduced a leadership development program in Aswan Governorate. The program aimed to improve health services in three districts by increasing managers’ ability to create high performing teams and lead them to achieve results. The program introduced leadership and management practices and a methodology for identifying and addressing service delivery challenges. [adapted from abstract]

This paper presents the findings of qualitative research documenting the participant experiences in the Observer Program, a hospital-based pre-employment program for international medical graduates entering the Australian healthcare system. [adapted from author]

The paper aims to provide a framework that can be used to analyse the interplay between continuing professional development (CPD), organisational culture and performance. It is argued that for CPD to support performance there is need for a culture that is adaptive and receptive to learning, change, innovation and performance improvement. [from abstract]

Recognizing the need to focus on health worker supply in order to achieve progress on health indicators, the Ministry of Health in Tanzania developed the Twiga Initiative to strengthen health workforce production through. This document outlines the steps taken to improve health worker training and institutions and the challenges involved. [adapted from author]

The objective of this paper is to describe the development and initial implementation of a curriculum for teaching medical students to care for patients with disabilities. [from abstract]

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of a training program on hand hygiene for the reduction of healthcare-associated infections for primary healthcare workers. [adapted from author]

Leadership courses and multi-source feedback are widely used developmental tools for leaders in health care. The authors aimed to study the additional effect of a leadership course following a multi-source feedback procedure compared to multi-source feedback alone especially regarding development of leadership skills over time. [from abstract]

This technical brief illustrates the breadth of pre-service and in-service trainings offered by FBOs, with a focus on nursing and midwifery pre-service training in Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. [from introduction]

This article describes a systematic process to develop and implement two strategic action plans focussing on competence development based on specific job descriptions. The approach was a change from only focussing on training, to a broader, long term approach to human resource development for comprehensive TB control. [adapted from abstract]

This paper examines aging of the general medical practitioner and specialist workforce in Australia and projects the numbers and timing of their retirement to 2025. It also discusses the impact that the retirement of experienced health care professionals has on the training requirements of the future health care workforce. [adapted from author]

This manual is designed to enable community health educators to incorporate activities related to constructive men’s engagement in reproductive health in their daily work. This includes promoting dialogue among men and women to increase couple communication and shared decisionmaking related to family planning and reproductive health. [from introduction]

This session will focus on different model programs incorporating novel techniques to optimize training of health workers. Discussion will include the realities of brain drain, health worker migration, and maintaining a vibrant health workforce. [from author]

The Learning for Performance (LFP) approach is a systematic instructional design process and set of practical tools designed to yield more efficient training that focuses on what is essential for health workers to do their jobs, while addressing the factors that ensure application of new skills on the job. [from author]

The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness strategy can improve the quality of care for pneumonia and other common illnesses in developing countries, but adherence to these guidelines could be improved. We evaluated an intervention in Benin to support health worker adherence to the guidelines after training, focusing on pneumonia case management. [from abstract]

The mandatory interprofessional education program - a process by which students and practitioners from various health professions learn together with the goals of interaction and collaboration in providing health promotion, disease prevention, curative services, rehabilitation and palliation - was initiated in 1999 at Gunma University. This paper is a statistical evaluation of the programme from 1999 to 2007. [adapted from abstract]