Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, August 31, 2024 (PAHO) - With the aim of training health career faculty, representatives of the Ministry of Health and other key institutions to design and implement teaching programs based on interprofessional health education, the Tutors Training course in Interprofessional Education was held. This workshop was organized by the Ministry of Public Health together with the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), with support from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The course consists of two phases, with two virtual meetings and one in-person workshop, which includes theoretical and practical sessions combined with lectures, interactive activities and group discussions to ensure a deep understanding and practical applicability of interprofessional health education.
“We have begun the second milestone of a project that, step by step, is taking shape. I am referring to the tutors training course on Interprofessional Education, which is a promising solution to address the health needs of individuals, families, and communities, in an effective and comprehensive manner, throughout the entire life cycle,” said the PAHO advisor on governance and human resources management for health, Yohana Díaz de Valle.
Díaz also highlighted that interprofessional education becomes a reality when members of two or more professions learn about others, with others, and among themselves, and subsequently experience collaborative work in their professional practice.
“That is why this workshop has involved professionals from different areas of health, both in training and in professional practice. In addition, it included the participation of officials from the MSPAS, the Ministry of Education of the National Health Service, and representatives of the Universidad Católica de Santo Domingo and the Universidad Central del Este. “Everyone has a key role to play in this transformation,” Díaz added.
The training was conducted by Dr. Larisa Carrera, from the Universidad del Litoral in Argentina.
Interprofessional Education
The model of care focused on the patient, families and communities requires the strengthening of Human Resources for Health (HRH), fundamental pillars to guarantee access and quality of health care. The availability, accessibility to care, the pertinence, relevance and competence of human resources are key factors to achieve universal access to health, universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the 2030 Agenda.
In the Region of the Americas, inequalities in the provision of educational opportunities limit the capacity to train health personnel. Two countries, Brazil and the United States (US), concentrate 83% of the 2,540 nursing schools; and three countries, Brazil, the United States and Mexico, account for 62% of the 1,145 medical schools in the Region. There are also inequalities in the provision of postgraduate courses, such as doctoral programmes in nursing in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 65% of the 63 programmes are in Brazil. This limits the capacity to train new tutors to train health personnel. In addition, the educational system is characterized by heterogeneity in terms of skills, structure, curriculum and faculty qualifications.
The complexity of the health reality demands interprofessional practice with consolidated health teams whose knowledge, attitudes, skills and values are articulated to achieve efficient, safe and quality care. To this end, the training of health professionals can benefit from innovative learning strategies and the incorporation of technologies. Among the strategies to strengthen the education of health professionals is interprofessional education, which has recognized results and a positive impact on collaborative practice, which has always been associated with the best development of the capabilities of each member of the health team.
