Health Professions Education and training for strengthening the health system and services in Uganda

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Project Summary There has been a chronic shortage of health professional workers in sub-Saharan Africa, which has 15% of the world's population, 25% of the global disease burden and 3% of the global workforce. Whereas Uganda's health indices like infant and under-5 mortality rate have improved, they remain unacceptably high with the health workforce as a key bottleneck to provision of appropriate health services. The MakCHS, MEPI award (2010), scored several successes including building research capacity by training PhDs, master's and faculty. In addition it improved the quantity, quality, and retention of medical graduates in Uganda through supporting the establishment of a medical school, identifying competencies for medical education and improving institutional systems for education and research. However, despite these achievements, there are several old and new emerging challenges that need a sustained training of more health workers. Also Ugandan's rapid population growth rate of 3.3 % with a high total fertility rate of 6.0 is creating a huge demand for health workers. Further because of the many gains in HIV care, HIV has become a chronic condition compounded with the associated increase in non-communicable diseases. This rapidly evolving epidemiological transitions have further strained the already weak Ugandan health care system. This project will build on the gains of the MEPI, address the challenges, and leverage on exiting opportunities. Our goal is to improve service delivery of the Ugandan health systems through strengthened health professional interdisciplinary education and research training. Our overall hypothesis is that strengthening the consortiums health professional education capacity will lead to increased numbers of health professionals, with the competencies to address the critical health needs of Uganda. We will test the overall hypothesis through the following aims. 1) Enhance Health Professions' Education and training to produce health professionals who are competent to address the priority health needs of Uganda. 2) Strengthen the capacity of graduating health professional students to remain and practice in Uganda, serve as faculty and or conduct research related to HIV/AIDs and other health priorities. 3) Enhance institutional systems to sustain transformative health professions education in Uganda through the engagement of stakeholders, networking, and enhancing institutional systems. The project will strengthen health professional education, research and training capacity in Uganda with special emphasis on nursing using innovative models including e-Learning and simulation methods. . We shall monitor and evaluate our interventions, to provide evidence for best practices. This consortium represents a strong innovative partnership between medical and nursing education institutions in Uganda and the US.