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Penn State and CREAD, The Inter-American Distance Education Consortium, are working with the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to help train thousands of pediatric health workers in Latin American and Caribbean countries using distance learning technologies. The planning of the three organizations has been facilitated by a grant from the Pan-American Health Education Foundation to fund the development of a distance learning program in these regions.
The distance learning course will be part of PAHO and the United Nations Fund for Children’s strategy to drastically reduce mortality and morbidity among children under 5 years old. The strategy, known as Integrated Management of Childhood Illness, aims to improve the skills of health workers and the management of health facilities, as well as to educate and increase awareness in the community.
Introduced by PAHO in 1996, Integrated Management of Childhood Illness has been progressively adapted to the specific epidemiological situation of Latin American and Caribbean countries. About 35,000 health-care workers have been trained in Integrated Management of Childhood Illness in 17 countries of the region. CREAD aims to reach more workers more rapidly by converting the current face-to-face training model into a distance-learning approach.
“In these countries, it is critical for the health-care worker to be able to identify rapidly and accurately which health problems are most important to treat first,” said Dr. Armando Villarroel, executive director of CREAD, “as well as to improve the overall health condition of the child. Sometimes a simple disease that is misdiagnosed can result in the death of a child. The key is to have speed.”
The main goal of the project is to increase the current number of 7,000 pediatric health-care workers trained each year in Integrated Management of Childhood Illness to an average of 25,000 a year with distance learning. The Pan-American Health Organization estimates up to 450,000 workers in child medical services could benefit from such an approach. Depending on the capabilities of the region, distance learning could incorporate a wide range of tools—from the high tech, such as Web sites, to the low tech, such as slides or books.
Dr. Patricia A. Book, associate vice president for outreach and executive director of the Division of Continuing Education at Penn State, praised the project, saying, “The partnership between Penn State and CREAD, coupled with the expertise and network of PAHO, creates a unique opportunity to address a critical health-care need. Penn State is contributing to the project its century-long experience in using distance education technologies to educate and train people living in all corners of the world, CREAD is sharing its knowledge and expertise in working with professionals throughout the Western Hemisphere, and PAHO is bringing its health-care expertise to build a model to educate more workers. Together, the partners can help make a significant impact on improving health care for children in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
CREAD was organized at the International Council for Distance Education World Conference in 1990; Penn State became CREAD’s host institution in 1994. Penn State’s College of Education and College of Medicine, the World Campus Department of Instructional Design and Development and Continuing Education are also involved in the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness project. |
