Horizon Medical Education

CPD is a professional requirement. Primary health workers in LMIC's have traditionally achieved their CPD through face to face training but this is increasingly difficult. Online education supplements traditional sources of training giving access to the most up to date evidence based education to clinicians in the remotest settings. 

In partnership with Professional Associations (Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda) we produce and distribute audio format CPD education modules to primary health-workers. The partnership model keeps content relevant, courses are locally accredited and learners achieve their mandated CPD. The modules are hosted on our website and downloadable (audio to keep data costs low) supported by notes, charts and diagrams and links to additional trusted resources. A discussion thread facilitates information exchange and challenges misinformation. 

Scaled globally the platform will provide a trusted source of free education to enable health workers to achieve their best professionally and for their patient population. 

Objective 1.1 of the WHO (2016) Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030  

'by 2020, all countries will have established accreditation mechanisms for health training institutions'.

CPD provision varies in quality and availability and has traditionally been provided in person, which is increasingly difficult to deliver, however keeping uptodate remains more important than ever. 

Primary health workers form the backbone of the health system and WHO estimates that an additional 18 million additional health workers will be required to meet the target of UHC by 2030. 

The project uses technology to deliver accredited education remotely; the freedom to learn anywhere at a time that suits the clinician and works across boundaries. The curriculum is chosen by our Partners and accredited locally, ensuring relevance and ownership. 

Access to quality education improves job satisfaction and can help retention, a particular problem in rural areas. Relevant and evidence based CPD improves care provided to the patient population.

We produce and distribute free online CPD courses to primary health workers in low resource settings. 

Locally accredited courses are delivered in audio format with accompanying notes, charts and diagrams and links to other resources. These are downloadable for offline learning even in remote settings. 

We partner professional organisations in country to consult on relevant content and local priorities, with our partners we aim to provide 20,000 hours of accredited, certificated CPD provision to their members within the next year.

The resultant library of courses and resources creates a sustainable learning centre for users.  and our longer term aim is to hand over the website and provision to these organisations. 

On successful completion users receive a certificate for their records and we report to the regulators. A discussion thread allows the exchange of information and questions, moderated to prevent inappropriate content. 

We are able to develop the on-line delivery in response to the local needs using other media such as videos if desired or practical. 

Horizon’s innovative e-learning model levels up access to high quality, evidence based education at very low cost. We work in collaboration with our Partners creating a grass roots approach to learning. Through provision of a positive and interactive learning environment users gain knowledge and confidence to invoke a change in their clinical practice and learn independently

Our solution serves primary health-workers in low resource settings. Sometimes called clinical officers or physicians associates these health workers form the backbone of the health service in their countries. Providing access to locally relevant and accessible online education to meet their mandated CPD requirement serves to improve their skills and knowledge while simultaneously ensuring that their patient population benefits from the most up to date evidence based practice available. Working in partnership with in country professional organisations we consult directly and create courses which meet the local priorities in each country. 

One of our partners, the Graduate Physician Associates of Ghana says this

"GRAPAG delights in the partnership with Horizon Medical Education to promote career advancement, continuous medical education for the attainment of highest standard of professional education. This project will open a new dimension of e-learning and practice of medicine to equip members of the Association as outstanding practitioners in Primary Health Care within the Ghana Health System"

Access to good quality continuing education not only promotes the best practice but promotes professional development improving job satisfaction and helps with staff retention.

We chose 'other' as the solution addresses more than one of the problems. The education equips last mile primary health workers with the tools and  knowledge detect and respond not just to disease outbreak but other health priorities while developing critical judgment and clinical expertise which is essential to prevent the spread of misinformation and protect themselves and their communities. The project has already started this work with a multi module Covid-19 course which has been shared and used in over 50 countries, keeping users up to date and responding speedily to circulating misinformation. 

The project has already produced and tested courses. We provided courses for the Global Association of Clinical Officers and PA's conference in Kigali and a Covid-19 course. We are now in the process of working, in partnership with the Graduate Physician Associates Ghana and Rwanda Medical Clinical Officers Association to produce and distribute courses on a wide range of primary health topics chosen by the partners in consultation with their members. We aim to provide courses and certification for 2000 health workers (10 hours training per user) over the next year and are seeking the overhead costs to meet this need. 

Partnership with local organisations providing relevant content to meet local priorities. Our local partners are the professional organisations for the health workers and they provide support and advice to their members, they aim to become providers of CPD to their members. The project will not only provide the CPD for their members in the short to medium term but will enable the partners to take over the provision and the site in the medium term leaving a sustainable benefit to the organisations and their members. (Our partners are Graduate Physician Associates Ghana and the Rwanda Medical Clinical officers Organization)

Creating a community of local learners through discussion thread exchanging questions and advice

Focus on Primary care mid level practitioners

Offline learning and audio modules reducing data usage/cost

Clinical training combined with critical thinking to build capacity amongst users to access other online resources/research.

Currently 550 users, the next planned expansion this year will be to 2000 users.

Within 5 years the site will be self sustaining and be made available to all english speaking mid level primary health workers in LMIC's. 

We aim to get between 50-66% of members enrolled on the courses in the first year. If this is achieved we will be contributing to meeting SDG 3c and 3.8

We measure course satisfaction, successful completion (CPD hours), pre and post course rating the impact the course has had on the learners confidence in managing patients with that condition. 

We aim for ratings showing:

Improvement in quiz score (from pre to post learning) 75%
Positive impact on confidence 75%
Audio module useful for learning 75%

We also aim to have click throughs to additional resources of approximately 66% towards our target of improving confidence in using trusted online resources.

Three directors working as volunteers part time, self funded with volunteer input.

Click here for a description of the team

We're an all female team. 

The Partner organisations have a committee/council makeup which reflects the gender balance in the profession in their country. 

Research identifies time constraints and family responsibilities as being two of the barriers to women taking part in CPD activities. The study is amongst nurses but we anticipate that the availability of any time offline learning will improve this. We gather data about the gender balance of users as part of our study of results.

We have a project that works but need help, advice and support to step up to the next level. Whether or not we win, we value the opportunity to become part of this community of people working with similar motivation and to benefit from the ideas and energy generated.

We have a working program which needs a small amount of funding to step up to the next level. 

Thereafter we would value expertise to support us to develop a plan to make the resource available, free of charge, to all primary health workers in the target countries and to expand using the partnership model, throughout english speaking LMIC's.

We'd love to partner with Thinkific as we are enthusiastic users of their product. Otherwise we'd welcome advice and support from other organisations with health education in mind.