NGOs and Universities Can Team Up to Improve Global Health through Digital Health

August 16, 2018Here ' s a  process that works—and benefits us all.The Research Triangle area of North Carolina is named for three world-class universities that form a triangle of academic and research excellence: University of North Carolina (UNC), Duke University, and North Carolina State University. We ’re lucky at IntraHealth International that our headquarters falls right in the middle of them.I came to IntraHealth in the fall of 2013, after 20 years at UNC, in part to figure out how to engage these universities in the global health work happening on the ground in countries around the world, and to work with them to build new digital health innovations that can improve health everywhere.How are we doing so far? In a word: fantastic.A university engagement success storyPeople involved in global health are aware of the widespread shortage of health workers. WHO estimates this shortage will grow to over 18 million by 2030. We do not have enough people in the training pipeline to address such a shortfall.So the only near-term, sustainable solution is to optimize the distribution of this workforce —that is, to make sure the right health workers are available when and where they’re needed most.A single-step national workforce calculator has eluded our field  for years.The traditional method, pioneered by WHO ’s Workforce Indicators of Staffing Need (WISN), involves sending hundreds of workshop leaders to collect information from every health facility and about every...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news