Developing an interprofessional transition course to improve team-based HIV care for sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Background With funding from the United States Health Resources Service Administration (HRSA), a consortium of health professional training institutions from Africa developed HIV-specific, interprofessional, team-based educational resources to better support trainees during the transition period between pre-service training and professional practice. Methods Ten faculty members representing nine medical and nursing schools in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) developed a training package of modules focused on core clinical, public health, interprofessional education (IPE), and quality improvement (QI) domains related to HIV service delivery. Curriculum development was informed by a rapid needs assessment of existing tools and future needs for HIV education across 27 SSA health professions training institutions. A total of 17 modules were developed, targeted at newly qualified health care professionals to be taught in a series of two-day workshops meant to complement existing institution specific HIV-curricula. Results Between April and July 2019, a comprehensive case-based HIV training package was developed to support trainees in transition from pre-service training to independent professional practice. Each module, addressing different elements of interprofessional practice, was intended to be delivered in an interprofessional format. Thus far, 70 health professions training institutions in 14 countries have implemented the program; 547 educators facilitated STRIPE workshops, with a total of 5027 learners trained between September 2019 and September 2020. Conclusions To our knowledge this is the first IPE HIV-specific curriculum explicitly focused on enhancing the quality of training provided to graduating health care professionals working in SSA. The collaborative, cross-institutional, interprofessional approach to curriculum development provides a benchmark for how best-practice approaches to education can be disseminated in SSA.

Comparing in-person, blended and virtual training interventions; a real-world evaluation of HIV capacity building programs in 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa

“…We evaluated mean changes in pre-and post-course knowledge scores and self-reported confidence scores for learners who participated in (1) in-person workshops (between October 2019 and March 2020), (2) an entirely asynchronous, Virtual Workshops [VW] (between May 2021 and January 2022), and (3) a blended Online Course [OC] (between May 2021 and January 2022) across 16 SSA countries. Learning objectives and evaluation tools were the same for all three groups.…”

“… Abstract

Introduction We sought to evaluate the impact of transitioning a multi-country HIV training program from in-person to online by comparing digital training approaches implemented during the pandemic with in-person approaches employed before COVID-19.

Methods We evaluated mean changes in pre-and post-course knowledge scores and self-reported confidence scores for learners who participated in (1) in-person workshops (between October 2019 and March 2020), (2) an entirely asynchronous, Virtual Workshops [VW] (between May 2021 and January 2022), and (3) a blended Online Course [OC] (between May 2021 and January 2022) across 16 SSA countries. Learning objectives and evaluation tools were the same for all three groups.

Results Across 16 SSA countries, 3023 participants enrolled in the in-person course, 2193 learners participated in the virtual workshop and 527 in the online course.

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Evaluating the impact of a multicountry interprofessional training programme to improve HIV knowledge and clinical confidence among healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa: a cohort study

“…The design of the training programme, including the topics covered and the format of the training, was informed by input from focus-group discussions with patient groups, learners (both preservice and early career professionals) and HIV educators from a variety of settings in SSA, and has been previously described. 13 Assessment tools, evaluating learners knowledge and confidence, were also piloted with a subset of multidisciplinary learners before the full programme was launched. All learners were given access to their prescore and postscore test results, via the programme’s website.…”

“…[7][8][9] Global initiatives, such as the Medical Education Partnership Initiative and the Nursing Education Partnership Initiative programmes, have contributed to recent crosscountry collaborations to improve health professions training, for both preservice and in-service learners., [10][11][12] In previous work, we have described the design and implementation of one such initiative-the STRIPE HIV (STRengthening InterProfessional Education for HIV) programme-funded by the US Health Resources Services Administration, with the goal to optimise team-based HIV care, using case-based, interprofessional approaches to learning. 13 This training programme consists of approximately 14 hours of modular case-based curriculum, typically taught over 2 days, addressing core components of HIV prevention, care and treatment, targeted at early career in-service health professionals ('postgraduates') and preservice learners in 14 high HIV burden countries in SSA. The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the impact of the STRIPE HIV programme, with specific attention to whether this interprofessional approach enhanced retention of HIV knowledge and confidence to deliver high-quality care, including >6 months after course participation.…”

Opportunities and Challenges in North-South and South-South Global Health Collaborations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The AFREhealth-CUGH Experience (as Reported at the CUGH 2021 Satellite Meeting)

“…IPE can enhance team-based care, while also enabling efficient use of training resources [9], leading to high impact in resource-constrained high disease burden settings [9]. An example of such an IPE model that evolved from face to face to e-learning platforms in the pandemic is the Strengthening Inter-professional Education for HIV (STRIPE-HIV) collaboration between AFREhealth and University of California San Francisco (UCSF) where a team of Nursing and Medical Educators developed a training package focused on clinical, public health, inter-professional Education (IPE), and quality improvement (QI) domains related to HIV service delivery [10].…”