NTHC eHealth Seminar gets even better

July 30, 2011 9:56 am | by Aliyah Lou Evangelista | Posted in News

Manila, Philippines — eHealth Seminar 2011, (formerly called Seminar on Health Informatics) has been in the limelight of NTHC’s activities since April 2010. So how does the seminar remained its phase as primary venue for sharing NTHC’ initiatives and innovations on eHealth?

This July 30, nurses, doctors, and IT experts altogether joined the eHealth Seminar at the UP Manila College of Medicine, Alvior Hall. This monthly seminar aims to “introduce the participants to various e-Health initiatives in the Philippines as led by the National Telehealth Center” as well as to raise people’s awareness on existing technologies for better health care delivery.

New teaching methods are employed to bring the training’s instructional design to the “next level”. Case studies and demonstration activities are incorporated in the training, a strategy which the center never did in previous eHS. For an instance, the usual discussion mode on eHS 103: Principles and Ethics on eHealth are delivered through “case vignettes”. These case vignettes aim to give participants better view on the application of ethics on eHealth. Participants are asked to present their own approaches in handling situations given to them. In addition, lessons are streamlined to better deliver core concepts of the topics being discussed.

An interactive SMS-based poll using FrontlineSMS is also used to gather participants’ opinions during the plenary session. It also tests their basic knowledge on eHealth.

FLSMS is an application freely available on the internet which turns a computer into a “central communications hub”. It has the ability to receive and send a large amount of SMS to and from various users. More than being a new teaching method in the seminar, FLSMS is also one of the innovations used by NTHC for eMedicine (Telemedicine). Melissa Pedreña, RN who discusses eHS 105: eMedicine gave an overview on how NTHC uses FLSMS in Telemedicine. According to her, FLSMS makes it possible for doctors to the barrios to send medical referrals through SMS to medical experts at the Philippine General Hospital. PGH experts then send a reply to doctors to the barrios through FLSMS. The FLSMS is stationed at NTHC and is managed by an eHealth Nurse.

Topics which are covered in the seminar include:

• eHS 101: Introduction to eHealth by Dr. Ryan Julius Bañez
• eHS 102: Standards and Interoperability and the future of eHealth by Dr. Ryan Julius Bañez
• eHS 103: Principles and Ethics on eHealth by Dr Beverly Lorraine Ho
• eHS 104: Free and Open Source Software by Engr. Randy Joseph Fernandez
• eHs 105: eMedicine (Telemedicine) by Melissa Pedreña, RN
• eHS 106: eRecords by Noel Bañez, RN
• eHS 107: eLearning for Health by Isidor Cardenas, RN
• eHS 108: Future on eHealth by Dr. Ryan Julius Bañez

The eHealth Seminar 2011 the 11^th instalment of the “Seminar on Health Informatics”. It is officially accredited by the Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Council for Nursing (PRC accreditation n0. 2010-054). NTHC also conducts eHealth Seminar per request. This training per request serves as an exclusive seminar for nursing colleges and institutions to better disseminate eHealth initiatives in the country.