Forty-one faculty and students from Burundi, Haiti, Rwanda, and the United States have gathered in Rwinkwavu, Kayonza District to launch a Global Health Delivery course.
The course is led by Harvard Medical School faculty in conjunction with the Ministry of Health of Rwanda.
The Global Health Delivery is a course that utilizes a novel educational framework to address the global burden of disease and its complex inter-related social determinants, with the aim of empowering a new generation of leaders in the health sector to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice in health care delivery.
In the course, senior health officials are taught how to think strategically and broadly when it comes to designing plans and programs for different health care interventions.
Minister of Health, Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, also a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, described the course as an example of authentic and effective capacity building for the health sector, meant to break the vicious cycle of poverty and disease.
“This program is about learning what happened in other countries, comparing notes and sharing best practices and how our own Health officials can deliver better services,” the Minister said.
This is the first time Harvard Medical School is conducting this course out of their Boston campus.
The course will be provided twice a year in Rwanda for students coming from across the world.
“Rwanda has been chosen because we have a lot of good innovations to share, like the role of Community Health Workers, functioning of Mutuelle de santé and Performance Based Financing and, all the success we had in maternal child survival.
So it’s a great opportunity to have because to bring 40 Rwandans and be taught by Harvard professors is a dream,” the Minister said.
In this rigorous and stimulating scholarly environment, participants will learn from international case studies and from one another by analyzing case studies from around the world that detail the design, operations, and outcomes of projects to improve health care delivery in resource-poor settings.
“To build a discipline of global health, research universities need to work with the real experts: those who deliver services,” said Paul Farmer, Chair of Harvard’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and course faculty member.
The course will be offered twice per year, with the goal of enrolling all central level leaders in the Ministry of Health, as well as program managers and students from around the world.
New case studies will be developed in the coming years to disseminate innovations in Rwanda’s health sector and cultivate Rwandan leaders in the emerging discipline of Global Health Delivery.
The Harvard-affiliated non-governmental organization Partners In Health Inshuti Mu Buzima provided logistical support and funding for the pilot version of the course.
The Ministry of Health availed the Rwinkwavu Training Center, which for five days has become a campus of Harvard.
Jean de Dieu Ngirabega, Director General of Clinical Services, who is a student in the course, commented, “I am thrilled to learn about a new way of conceptualizing service delivery.”
ENDS
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