FORTY-ONE more persons graduated on Monday from the Ministry of Health Information Technology Training Course.

A cross section of the health workers who graduated from the Ministry of Health’s Information Technology Training Course.

The latest batch of health workers to grate took the total number trained to 164.

The first of the two-month courses commenced in September 2006 at the Regional Health Services Office, using a six-tier module encompassing introduction to computers, managing files, Microsoft Office and Electronic Communication.

The programme is essentially geared to facilitate a better delivery on HIV/AIDS by the Ministry and, by extension, enhance of health care across Guyana.

Funded by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States, it has support from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Also involved in the quest to make health care professionals technologically literate is the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the International Training and Education Centre on HIV (I-TECH).

Country Director of I-TECH Guyana, Dr. Wallis Best Plummer said I-TECH involvement is to have, primarily nurses and medexes trained in the use of its electronically developed products.

“It is in the best interest of I-TECH to assist in this endeavour since having trained personnel in the health system will assist our organisation’s work,” she said.

Opportunities
I-TECH’s facilitation was through its distance learning initiative which provides opportunities for health care professionals worldwide, Plummer said.

According to her, the goals of the initiative are to:
* increase the capacity of health care workers in

resource-limited settings to deliver high quality HIV

care and treatment services while allowing them to

remain in their workplaces to provide services there;

* build the capacity of Ministries of Health and

governmental institutions in using distance learning

technologies and designing distance learning

programmes for health care workforce

development and

* provide technical assistance in effectively using

distance learning as a component of training and/or

blended learning programmes.

The course tutor, Mrs. Drupattie Miller said it is hoped that the training spreads information technology awareness which is essential to improving the health sector.

Expected
Director of Health Sciences Education, Mr. Noel Holder added that it is expected such capacity building would lead to advancing the Ministry’s health information system.

He pointed out that, apart from the nurses and medexes, other trained persons include laboratory technicians, managers and directors within the Regional Health Services.

Holder said continuation of the tutelage will see development in the health sector.

Minister within the Ministry of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran, who delivered the charge to the graduates, said: “We are keeping in sync with the national thrust that every single person must be computer literate, especially workers in the health sector.”

He announced that the Health Ministry will be partnering with the Ministry of Education in the hope of expanding the process.