To improve diabetes knowledge and caring skills among health professionals through e-learning.
Expected impact
Increased diabetes knowledge and skills in trained health professionals facilitating high quality care to people with diabetes
Increased knowledge about diabetes and better self-management skills among people with diabetes who are served by the trained health professionals
The e-learning course proves to be an effective educational tool and results are widely disseminated
Results to date
The course is functional and opened to health professionals in Chile and Mexico. Chile has finished design of material (see link).
243 doctors, 135 nurses and 7 paramedics have been trained.
Multidisciplinary teams have been established in all four countries including Ministries of Health, medical schools and networks and PAHO offices.
Project details
Diabetes education given by health professionals to people with diabetes is important in order for the patient to be able to achieve adequate self-management and to prevent complications.
Health educators in Latin America do not have equal access to training in diabetes. They encounter different obstacles in their efforts to provide diabetes patients with adequate education.
Knowledge of their disease and its management will help people with diabetes to achieve a good diabetes control and prevent the development of diabetes complications.
However, in some instances human and material resources for diabetes education are lacking, in others, complex geography has been an impediment to diabetes education; health personnel cannot travel long distances to participate in courses and workshops, or may not be able to bear the cost of courses.
Approach
The project aims to create an up-to-date, sustainable diabetes education programme for health professionals in 4 Latin American countries. The objective is to increase the capacity of the health professionals who serve people with diabetes to enable them to provide high-quality care aimed at improving diabetes self-management and thereby quality of life.
The participating countries are Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba and Mexico.
Eleven organisations and institutions in the participating countries are involved in the project. The general coordination is overseen by the Pan American Health organisation (PAHO) and each country has an interdisciplinary working group to carry out the project at local level.
Previous studies have indicated that distance learning can be an effective educational method. Therefore, the project seeks to implement a diabetes education course for health professionals in the target region applying this method. An internet-based diabetes education programme contributes to increased opportunities for health professional continuing education and diabetes training.
The e-learning courses developed are based on existing programmes for diabetes training used in a classroom setting. Based on the existing programmes, each country in turn creates its own e-learning course according to the particular needs of the country and the social context.
During a pilot training course, students and tutors interact online an agreed number of times. The students prepare exercises, and their attendance is registered.
While most of the training is conducted using online communication, some exams will require the physical presence of the participants in a training centre.
The goal for the pilot period is to train at least 20 health professionals from one or two health regions in each country.
After a pilot period, it is expected that the coverage will expand, and over time there will be national coverage of health professionals trained in diabetes education, according to international standards and national needs.
