I-DAIR collaborates with CENS to train leaders in digital transformation
The International Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Research Collaborative (I-DAIR) is collaborating with the National Center for Health Information Systems (CENS) of Chile to offer an 11-week virtual course on the digital transformation of healthcare.
I-DAIR and CENS deliver the first Spanish language version of an internationally approved digital health course in Latin America and the Caribbean.
One hundred participants including academics, researchers, representatives of public and private hospital systems and professionals from government agencies, including the Ministry of Health, in Chile and the LAC region will be the first to take the Spanish version of the course. The English version has been taught to over 400 learners at donor, multilateral and regional institutions.
The course titled “Digital Health: Planning National Systems” is designed to empower leaders and change agents with the technical concepts and planning tools needed to guide and mentor national digital health stakeholders. The course is a blended program of both self-paced learning and live virtual group activity sessions, covering one module per week and concluding with a final project. The course curriculum was developed by USAID, Digital Square, and TechChange based on content compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
“We are excited to partner with CENS as a key member of our Global Capacity Development Network (CDN) for digital health and AI to address the fragmented approach to capacity development”
The planning and delivery of this course is a joint activity under the I-DAIR and CENS Memorandum of Understanding established in 2020. Alice T. Liu, I-DAIR’s capacity development director and partnerships lead, described the larger vision behind the collaboration on this course, “We are excited to partner with CENS as a key member of our Global Capacity Development Network (CDN) for digital health and AI to address the fragmented approach to capacity development. The CDN targets the training needs of health researchers, innovators, policy makers and decision makers who are responsible for digital health systems and policy. The vision of the CDN is to leverage the faculty, expertise, courses, and other educational offerings from I-DAIR hubs and key partners and make them available to learners regardless of geographic location. We are building the foundation for this vision by co-creating a digital health competency framework to define a standard for professional competence in collaboration with a global working group. The digital health competency framework will connect with a vetted education library and knowledge exchange to provide learners with the educational offerings, peer support, and mentoring that they need to leverage digital health more successfully and thereby improve health outcomes.”
CENS chose the program participants in collaboration with the Digital Health Network of State Universities, an alliance that connects public campuses located from Arica to Magallanes and is supported by the Ministry of Education.
Dr. May Chomali, executive director of CENS, emphasized that “the strategic alliance between I-DAIR and CENS will help to better address the objectives of training people in digital health. The course, which has been very successful in other countries in an English version, will be given in Latin America for the first time in its Spanish version, and also totally free of charge for the participants. It will be an instance that will undoubtedly enhance the formation of advanced human capital for the digital transformation of healthcare in Chile and Latin America and the preparation of leaders who will accompany and manage this process at different levels.”
The course covers critical technical concepts, existing best practices and pragmatic methods, all framed in accordance with the national planning cycle at the government agency level. Major topics covered include health systems and digital health interventions; national digital health strategies; approaches to enterprise planning; implementation of digital health platforms and interventions; costing and procurement; governance, policy, regulation and workforce; and the future of digital health. The I-DAIR/CENS delivery of the Spanish course will run from May to August 2023.
CENS is a non-profit initiative, supported by the National Research and Development Agency (ANID), the Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO), and five Chilean universities, which aims to provide the country with the baseline conditions for the technological evolution of healthcare systems. For more information, please contact contacto@cens.cl
