Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

E-learning is a relatively new project taken up by the link. Since its inception in 1999, the link has not only conducted numerous training workshops but has also donated a large volume of medical textbooks and training materials. The adoption of e-learning has been a natural progression in the link's aim to improve health care delivery in rural Ethiopia.

The first e-learning workshop for Ethiopian doctors was conducted in October 2006 as part of the 'Training of the Trainers' program. Specialist doctors responsible for teaching health officers and nurses were shown how to use computers to access medical information both for their own continuing medical education as well as to teach others. This initial hands-on practical workshop was well received and inspired us to explore further opportunities.  We also set up a networked computer library at Hawassa Referral Hospital in 2006

E-learning and e-libraries: After considerable needs assessment and research, e-learning has now become an integral part of the Exemplar Health Centres project. We have setup electronic medical libraries at all the three health centres with extensive resources on medicine, surgery, maternal and child health, infectious and tropical diseases and all other emergency and essential topics relevant to the health centre scenario. We have setup two computers at Wondo-genet and Yirgacheffe and 3 computers at Halaba.

The ability to provide vast amounts of interactive, multimedia-rich, learning material augments our other training programmes. We have sourced content from a variety of sources including eTALC, Primary Surgery, WHO's Integrated Management for Emergency and Essential Surgical Care (IMEESC) tool kit, etc. We have taken significant efforts to ensure that these electronic libraries are well used by providing on-site IT skills training for all health centre staff as well as regularly maintaining and updating the computers. 

We are currently exploring the use of open-source software for the long term maintenance of these e-libraries. One e-library at each health centre is setup on Ubuntu. We are also exploring the use of learning management systems to deliver content as well as monitor usage and an early version is available here. We have encouraged and facilitated internet connections at the exemplar health centres. An online forum  has been setup recently to encourage UK and Ethiopian partners to explore the possibilities of online interaction.

For further information or to collaborate on current and future projects please contact Vishnu V Chandrabalan (select from the dropdown list of contacts).