207714 Health Sciences Online: Thinking globally, acting locally to address health sciences education disparities

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Erica Frank, MD MPH , School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Carolina Segura, MD , School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Kshamica Nimalasuriya, MD MPH , Preventive Medicine Residency Program, Emory University, Atlanta, GA
Kate Tairyan, MD MPH , School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Olga Lucia Sarmiento, MD MPH PhD , Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
Elena Trujillo, MD , Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
Andrea Ramirez , Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia
According to the WHO, at least 4.2 million additional health workers are required, along with more innovative, transdisciplinary, and less-expensive training methods to increase local educational and service opportunities.

Health Sciences Online (www.HSO.info) helps this crisis. HSO is a sieve that includes >50,000 world-class materials from already-existing reliable resource collections such as medical specialty societies, accredited continuing education organizations, governments, and universities. HSO is a virtual learning center with browse and search functions, providing free, online links to a comprehensive collection of top-quality courses and references in medicine, public health, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, the basic sciences, and other health sciences disciplines.

We have recently begun creating free/very inexpensive virtual health sciences universities around the world, providing certificates, degrees, and residencies for health professionals in training and practice, using HSO-identified training materials, local professionals for mentoring, and automated evaluations.

As an example of this, we are training nurses and health educators about ARDS in children in Choco, Colombia—one of the poorest regions in Latin America. In conjunction with local institutions, HSO evaluated the regional health education needs, chose appropriate materials from the HSO database, and provided a training course to local nurses and health educators. An HSO tutorial was developed to teach the heath care providers of the region how to use HSO materials, and to learn and develop further courses.

We will present examples of HSO use, and give participants opportunities to identify other ways in which they/others could use HSO in their work.

Learning Objectives:
To describe a virtual learning center to address health education disparities To explain the relevance of Health Sciences Online as education tool To demonstrate an innovative approach to training health care providers

Keywords: Health Disparities, Health Education

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I designed and participated in all steps of the study.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Success in Public Health Education and Health Promotion
See more of: Public Health Education and Health Promotion