Regional News

PAHO / WHO calls for giving more attention to the control of hypertension

Collaboration between The Lancet, MEDICC Review - International Journal of Cuban Health & Medicine and with the financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Pan American Health Organization.

The Safe Delivery App is an innovative mobile health tool developed by Maternity Foundation in partnership with the University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark. Through simple animated clinical instruction films, the app can teach birth attendants in hard-to-reach areas how to manage complicated deliveries. The app is based on global clinical guidelines and has the potential to overcome the outreach barriers of conventional training programs, ensuring that more women have access to skilled care when giving birth.

You can find more information about the App, and links to download it at: http://maternity.dk/en/content/mhealth

The Virtual Campus for Public Health is one of the virtual education programs is discussed in an article published in www.openpraxis.org

Mr. Edgardo De Gracia member of the VCPH regional team was interviewed as part of the investigation that led to the drafting of the article.

The complete article is available at:

http://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/188/152

Because the enormous interest and the number of applications received for the course "Nursing Leadership: Empowering Nurse Leaders in Latin America (2015)" the coordination of the course decide to increase the number of seats. Candidates selected for this edition will be informed soon.

The new date for the beginning of the course will be on May 18 and will run until August 10, 2015.

Candidates not selected at this time will have a chance to take the course in future editions that are already programmed.

In the framework of the VII Summit of the Americas in Panama, the Departments of Health Systems and Services and Communications prepared the exhibition of photographs Towards universal access to health and universal health coverage in the Americas.

The photographs underscore the importance of health in the lives of people and highlights key steps for countries to move.

We invite you to view a sample of this online exhibition:

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FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS:

• The WHO HQ Library instructor will lead the offered courses online using WebEX.
• Courses are approximately 90 minutes in duration with time allowed for questions/interaction between instructor and  participants.
• Please verify your local time by using the following site http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
• Participants need a computer, internet connection and ability to install the Java script to take full advantage of the course.
• Audio speakers are required and ideally a microphone to fully participate.
• You can pretest your WebEX functionality by using this test site http://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html

VIRTUAL TRAINING AGENDA:

Between 26 and 27 March Eng. Edgardo De Gracia and Lic. Gabriel Listovsky attended a workshop in Lima, Peru intended to assist the development of virtual training projects managed by the Directorate-General for Management Development HR Ministry of Health of Peru.

Panama, March 31, 2015 (PAHO / WHO) - Officials from several institutions in the Panamanian health sector participated in the workshop skills training tutorials and design of virtual environments, with the aim of strengthening the implementation process Node Panama in the Virtual Campus of Public Health, PAHO / WHO.

"This workshop is very important because it seeks to implement the Node Panama to update staff nationwide," said Dr. Itza Barahona de Mosca, Director General of Health, Ministry of Health, during the opening of the workshop. "This is the best tool to train border to border, at low cost," she said.

On 4 and 5 March the annual meeting of the decentralized nodes of the Virtual Campus for Public Health was held in Bogota, Colombia.

RISS, evaluate the performance of decentralized nodes and develop the work plan for 2015 - On 4 March, a working meeting devoted to evaluating the experience in developing the course of PHC was performed.

We are pleased to launch of the Virtual Course on Properly Completing Death Certificates for medical doctors on the PAHO Virtual Campus (March 20^th, 2015), developed by experts in the Family of International Classifications (FIC-WHO). This course aims to contribute to the improvement of the quality of the mortality data. It is a self-learning virtual course that can be accessed from any computer or mobile device connected to the Internet. The target audience is medical doctors responsible for filling out death certificates in hospitals or any other health facility. In addition, final year medical students are also encouraged to participate.

We announce that the deadline to submit application forms to participate in the Virtual Course "How to effectively address Non Communicable Diseases in 21st Century (2015 version)" has been extended to March 2, 2015 (previously the deadline was February 26).

The course will run from 9 March to 7 June, 2015, and is targeted to Caribbean NCD country managers and managers in related areas: Health promotion, NCD Epidemiology, diabetes, CVD or cancer program managers. Selected participants will be notified by March 5.

You can review the course information for more details.

Between 2 and 6 February an Workshop in the regional office of VCPH of different professionals related to area of information, and who are working at the nodes of Central America and the Caribbean.

The workshop is proposed to meet the following objectives:

On Wednesday 28 February the 3rd meeting in the creation of Panama Node Virtual Campus of Public Health, PAHO was held at the offices of PAHO in Panama.

The meeting was attended by Dr. Gaspar Da Costa, assigned by the Ministry of Health to coordinate the node, Dr. Federico Hernandez Pimentel - PAHO Representative in Panama and Dr. Rosa María Borrell -. Head Unit Resources human Health (ai). PAHO-WDC.

Dr. Federico Hernandez welcomed, appreciated the presence of Dr. Rosa María Borrell and acknowledged the efforts of the various institutions that are participating in the development of the node.

Between 27 and 29 January, a workshop for review and analysis of management processes of VCPH was held at the regional office in Panama.

We are initiating the call for applications for the “Virtual Course on How to Effectively Address Non Communicable Diseases in the 21th Century” Version 2015, which will be offered on the Virtual Campus for Public Health (VCPH). The General Coordinator (GC) for this course is Dr. Branka Legetic, regional advisor in prevention and control of NCDs in NMH/ND unit and Director of the course is Dr Anselm Hennis, Director of NMH.

The self-learning course VIAA (Visual inspection with acetic acid) and cryotherapy for cervical cancer prevention is available.

Application forms for enrollment to the Self-Learning Virtual Course "Nursing Leadership: Empowering Nurses in Latin America and the Caribbean", will be received online until February 2, 2015. 

This course is intended for nursing professionals with a minimum of an undergraduate-level nursing education who are seeking to enhance their leadership capacities and who meet the following professional and technical qualifications:

The past November 16 the regional team of Virtual Campus of Public Health, participated in a workshop in Managua for the consolidation of Nicaragua node where the Virtual Campus of Public Health presented with the country's institutions (MINSA and their diverse areas, universities, institutes of technical education and military hospitals).

It was attended by Dr. Monica Padilla, Human Resources Advisor Subregional PAHO, who presented the development experience Node VCPH El Salvador.

When: Friday 5th December, 2014, 9:00 am to 10:30 am (Washington, D.C. Time)

Where: Room C, PAHO HQ Building, 525 23rd Street N.W., Washington DC, 20037, USA

The session will be broadcasted through the following links:

• Spanish: www.paho.org/virtual/HSS-CoberturaUniversalenSalud
• English:  www.paho.org/virtual/HSS-UniversalHealthCoverage

Moderator:

• Dr. Francisco Becerra Posada, Assistant Director, Pan American Health Organization

Presentations

Under the "Workshop on the Analysis of the situation of human resources for health at the national level and its harmonization with health policy" on Wednesday October 29 was presented at the PAHO Headquarters Panama Virtual Campus for Public Health as a tool for development and technical cooperation.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Social Security Fund, Universities and Professional Associations.

On Thursday October 30th a day of work centered on present experience in the development of the country and nodes accompany Panamanian institutions in developing Panama VCPH node was performed.

On 27 and 28 October was held in Veracruz, Mexico, the XIV Iberoamerican Meeting of Ministers of Health.

The meeting discussed how technological innovations help to strengthen public health policy, especially aimed at the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases. In the statement there are several specific issues related to human resources for health, training and promoting the use of ICT.

These include:

• The use of tele-education for the training of health professionals.
• Promoting the use of ICTs to strengthen the skills and work in interdisciplinary teams.

The call for applications to the first version of the self-learning virtual course NURSING LEADERSHIP: EMPOWERING NURSE LEADERS IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN will be open soon. The course will take place from March 2 to May 22, 2015

The course aims to empower nurses in Latin America and the Caribbean by enhancing participants’  understanding and application of nursing leadership and management principles.

The course is free of charge and open to nursing professionals with a minimum of an undergraduate-level nursing education and currently practicing in the nursing field, either as a nurse clinician, educator or administrator.

The Director of the School of Public Health University of Chile, Dr. Oscar Arteaga Herrera gave a presentation of the Chilean Network of Training Institutions in Public Health: from competition to cooperation.

Recently, three courses offered through the Regional Virtual Classroom of the Virtual Campus for Public Health concluded successfully.

Nineteen (19) health professionals distributed throughout the region of the Americas (specifically in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela) participated and successfully completed the first version of the "Virtual Course with regional experts in diagnosis, treatment and prevention of acute pesticide poisoning (in Spanish)".

Big problems need big solutions, sparked by big ideas, imagination and audacity. In this talk, journalist Gail Reed profiles one big solution worth noting: Havana’s Latin American Medical School, which trains global physicians to serve the local communities that need them most

Over three weeks, the PMIS central team in collaboration with the VCPH, together with colleagues from various departments and country offices, participated in the process of "Review of Solutions". During the working sessions of the first prototype of PMIS, which has the initial configuration of modules HR Payroll evaluated.

The Review Solutions was a very interactive exercise in which Collaborative Solutions, responsible for integrating all systems PMIS, presented his interpretation of the administrative processes of the PAHO and how these fit into Workday (central system PMIS) "said Gonzalo Contreras, Manager PAHO Argentina.