Keynote speakers for this year’s edition of EPHP have been confirmed. We have dynamic and experienced public health researchers attending to share and discuss about equity in healthcare, intersectoral action in health. Dr Abdul Ghaffar, executive director of WHO Alliance, will also be present and share his 30 years ofexperience in public health research. Presenters from different healthcare research backgrounds will be presenting on this year’s theme for EPHP 2016. To know more click here
The e-learning course in health financing was conceptualised by Dr. N. Devadasan. He has a rich experience in the field and has been teaching this subject in many universities. Keeping in mind the current public health scenario, where the competency in health financing is an important asset for the professionals and policy makers, the course was designed to bridge the knowledge gap in the field and strengthen the capacity of professionals in health financing.
The first batch of e-learning course in health financing was launched in April this year. From hundreds of applications, we shortlisted 28 applicants for enrollment in the course. We have a mix of academicians, researchers, government and non-government professionals in our current batch. The batch has representation from National Health Mission (NHM), ESI,etc. There are participants from UNICEF and NGOs like ACCESS Health International, HSRII,SAMA, MYRADA, PHFI and other organisations like International union against tuberculosis and lung diseases. We also have participants from academic institutions like Puducherry Institute of Medical Sciences and IIHMR. Through our e-learning course we have reached participants across the country from Rajasthan in west to Odisha in east, Delhi in north to Kerala to south.
The course consists of four modules, each module has three units and each unit has three to four classrooms that are powerpoint presentations with audio and video recordings. Classrooms also have corresponding exercises to test the knowledge of participants. We have some interesting learning activities in the course for making the learning more practical and keeping the participants motivated. Each module has an activity called ‘From the field’. In this section, we interview the key people from the field and bring their stories to participants. Another engaging feature is ‘Crossword Puzzle’, where after each module participants can unlock a level and get clues to solve the puzzle. Another interactive feature is ‘FAQs’, where in the Subject Matter Expert (SME) answers the queries of participants in the form of video than just typing on the discussion forum.
We are systematically tracking the progress of our participants and give feedback whenever needed. We hope that the course will be a success and we will be running several batches of the course in the near future.
The Institute of Public Health, Bengaluru in collaboration with Centre for Tropical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Gadjah Mada hosted the second regional course on Good Health Research Practice in Bengaluru. Five teams with public health research backgrounds from across the country participated in the 4-day training where they were introduced to concepts and principles of good health research practices. Overall, the 4-day training involved a lot of interaction between participants and the facilitators.
Diljith Kannan, training coordinator and Dr.Aneesha Ahluwalia, tutor for e-learning courses attended the eighth annual workshop of the LINQED educational network. The workshop was organised at the Uganda Martyrs University (Faculty of Health Sciences), Kampala, Uganda from 17th till 20th May 2016.
Started in 2008, LINQED refers to Learning together on quality in education in international health, working on quality in education and linking up people. It is a network of educational and government institutions providing postgraduate level training in human and animal tropical medicine, public health and international health.
LINQED organises annual workshops that focus on pedagogy, quality assurance and e-learning. The theme for this year was ‘Improving education leadership and research, cooperative learning and critical thinking in higher education’.
The focus areas of the workshop:
Cooperative learning
Critical thinking
Educational research
Education leadership
The workshop was a good networking platform, where the members got an opportunity to interact with participants from various countries and share their experiences. Diljith Kannan presented about quality assurance and IPH experience with e-learning. The workshop helped IPH members gain new perspectives about the learning activities and education research. It was like a stepping stone towards introducing new learning activities in their e-learning courses. The workshop was also promising in terms of providing us support for research in the field of e-learning.
In a collaborative effort, Jeroen De Man (Institute of Tropical Medicine) and Bheemaray Manganavar (Institute of Public Health) took under the loop the Block Programme Managers in Karnataka, supported by Arupa Das, Bart Criel, and N. Devadasan, they recently published their findings under the title: “The Profile and Job Perceptions of Block Programme Managers in Karnataka”.
Abstract
Objective:
To understand BPMs profile, their roles and responsibilities as well as their performance
Design:
This descriptive study provides first insights on who BPMs are, what they do, and what they perceive as barriers to their well-functioning. Data were collected through a semi-structured and self-administered questionnaire from 117 BPMs of Karnataka. Seventy four percent of the contacted BPMs responded.
Result:
Their average age was 30.4 years, 85% was male, and 88.8% had a Master in Business Administration. Self-reported performance and perceived ability is high. BPMs report low salary, lack of cooperation from higher level and field staff, lack of training, lack of logistic support and lack of authority as important barriers to their work.
Conclusion:
This study suggests that the BPMs require capacity building and supportive supervision with regular feedback to improve their performance. We encourage more research on this important element of NRHM. To know more about article titled,” The Profile and Job Perceptions of Block Programme Managers in Karnataka”Click here
