Leveraging massive open online courses to expand quality of healthcare education to health practitioners in Rwanda

[摘要] Improving the quality of healthcare delivery is increasinglya global health priority. However, quality improvementtraining opportunities that provide theoretical foundationsand basic skills for patient safety and other qualityinitiatives have been limited or historically out of reach,especially in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs).To address this gap, the Harvard Initiative on GlobalHealth Quality (HIGHQ) created and launched a massiveopen online course (MOOC) in 2014 focused on patientsafety and quality of care using the edX platform.More than 30 000 students from across 195 countriesregistered for the online course. This paper summarisesan innovative educational partnership between the courseteam and one of these countries, Rwanda, to develop ablended-learning model to bolster participation in thisnew course among Rwandan healthcare professionals.Although a small country, Rwanda was among the topperforming countries for attracting course registrants andwas the leading country for the proportion of enrolleeswho ultimately completed the course. Further, half (21of 42) of Rwanda’s district hospitals opted to appoint aPH555x course facilitator at their site to help lead regularmeetings and discussions about the course content attheir facility. The majority of Rwandan enrollees werehealth professionals (63%) and 81% reported that PH555xwas their first experience taking an online course. Amongthose participating in the ‘flipped’ component at hospitalsites, 94% reported that the course helped them to thinkof specific ways to improve healthcare quality at theirfacility. In this paper, we describe this innovative public–private educational model, challenges to implementationand lessons learned that may be helpful for future MOOCdevelopers who wish to augment learning opportunitiesamong healthcare professionals in LMICs.

[学科分类] 药学