IICD supported project: Promoting Continuing Medical Education among Rural Health Workers by use of ICTs

Countries: Uganda [UG]
Sectors: health

Summary

The project aims to contribute to poverty alleviation by helping to improve health care delivery through continuing medical education (CME) for rural health workers by using ICTs and multi-media. The major focus on gathering and repackaging high quality health information, enhancing communication for increased interaction, training in the use of basic ICTs and continuous monitoring and evaluation of CME activities. The project, which is co-sponsored by Cordaid and IICD, is implemented by Uganda Martyrs University (UMU), Faculty of Health Sciences (DHS), and the three hospitals of Itojo in Ntungamo district, Nkozi in Mpigi district and Mutolere in Kisoro district.

Update

Updated: 2005-12-09

As the project just started the overall attention went to establishing the Project Implementation Team (PIT), training rural health workers from the three hospitals in basic ICT skills, and the development and repackaging of the first CME modules. The latter is done by the Uganda Martyrs University (UMU) and the Faculty of Health Sciences (DHS), in co-operation with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB). The actual trainings will take place in the three pilot hospitals. The PIT consists of representatives of the three pilot hospitals, the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB).

The project is set up in such a way that within one year the project will be financially sustainable.

Objectives

The Project Implementation Team has defined objectives in order to contribute to poverty alleviation by improving health care delivery through CME:

• To improve availability of CME material and information both in UMU and at different resource centres in the participating hospitals through the use of ICT and multi-media;
• To promote utilization of CME by the health staff for increased knowledge and skills through the use of ICT;
• To improve the capacity of the Faculty of health sciences of UMU to develop and promote CME in specific areas by harnessing ICT;
• To create capacity at the pilot hospitals, amongst the health workers, to determine CME needs, source for and repackage relevant material themselves; and,
• To share the materials produced with more hospitals through the UCMB.

Planned outputs

The planned outputs for this project are:

• A baseline study resulting into a report made on the current  CME practices in the pilot hospitals;
• Training workshops conducted for the Project Implementation Teams of the rural hospitals;
• Functional ICT resource centres set up in pilot phase hospitals;
• CME material and information available in every hospital involved in the pilot phase;
• Rural health workers able to use  ICTs and other multi-media for CME;
• Health workers with capacity to  identify their CME needs;
• Health workers with capacity to source for CME material; and,
• Faculty of Health Sciences with more capacity of using ICTs to enhance CME.

Development Impacts

This project strongly links health and poverty. The Uganda Participatory Poverty Assessment Project (UPPAP) study identified ill-health as the most frequently cited cause and consequence of poverty. Hence, it is not surprising that two out of the four pillars of the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) are directly related with health, namely, Increased ability of the poor to raise their incomes (Pillar 3) and Enhanced quality of life of the poor (Pillar 4). Illness has been identified as the major cause of low incomes and low quality of life.

Health care workers, being the most important asset of the health system, need to continuously update their knowledge and skills. Health problems are, and will keep on changing. New diseases and risk factors are always emerging and some old ones re-emerging. Therefore, health workers need to stay updated.

Management and organisation

The project will be managed by the Faculty of Health Sciences of Uganda Martyrs University. The Faculty Board and the Dean (Everd Maniple) will be at the helm of the project activities to give strategic direction and also ensure the activities of the project are in line with the vision and mission of the faculty.

In the three pilot hospitals the CME coordinators will chair the hospital PITs and also represent them in the UMU project PIT. They will regularly report the hospital CME project activities to the coordinator. The project coordinator (John Mugisha) shall head the implementation teams and regularly report to the afore-mentioned organs.

There will also be a steering committee comprising some members of the teaching staff of the faculty plus hospital CME coordinators, an official from Ministry of Health, an officer from UCMB and a University Accountant.

An external advisor has been appointed to advise the project coordinator and the PIT on technical issues and on project management.

Market and finance

The target groups can be divided in the target groups for the capacity building services in the three rural pilot hospitals and in a later phase (year 2) the 27 UCMB hospitals.

Project Owner :

The Faculty of Health Sciences of the Uganda Martyrs University (UMU)

P.O.Box 5498, Kampala

John Mugisha jfmugisha@umu.ac.ug (project coordinator)

Everd Maniple everdmaniple@umu.ac.ug (Dean Faculty of Health Sciences, Nkozi, Uganda)

Project Partners : IICD and Cordaid

Project Contact : IICD