Training Activities for Community Health Workers
This six-day training is intended for case managers/community health volunteers/field supervisors who help households affected by HIV in India.
This publication aims to provide examples of better palliative care practices for older people to help those involved in planning and supporting care-oriented services most appropriately and effectively. Examples have been identifi ed from literature searches and from an international call... for examples through various organizations, including the European Association of Palliative Care and the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society. Some examples consider how to improve aspects within the whole health system; specifi c smaller examples consider how to improve palliative care education, support in the community, in hospitals or for specifi c groups of people, such as people in nursing homes and people with dementia and their families. Some examples await rigorous evaluation of effectiveness, and more research is needed in this fi eld, especially the cost–effectiveness and generalizability of these initiatives.
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Scaling Up Mental Health Care In Rural India
The SAMHSA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions (CIHS) promotes the development of integrated primary and behavioral health services to better address the needs of individuals with mental health and substance use conditions, whether seen in specialty behavioral health or primary care provider... settings. CIHS is funded jointly by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration(SAMHSA) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and run by the National Council for Behavioral Health.
Despite the high prevalence of mental health and substance use problems, too many Americans go without treatment — in part because their disorders go undiagnosed. Regular screenings in primary care and other healthcare settings enables earlier identification of mental health and substance use disorders, which translates into earlier care. Screenings should be provided to people of all ages, even the young and the elderly
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Primary Care: The Community Health System
In light of the decline in new Ebola cases, strategies are now needed to scale down the activities and bed capacities in Ebola care facilities. These facilities include Ebola treatment units, community care centres, Ebola treatment centres and isolation centres. The Governments of Guinea, Liberia an...d Sierra Leone; WHO; CDC; ICAN and UNICEF have jointly developed this rapid guidance and checklist to assist national governments and partners as they begin this process. This rapid guidance pertains to protecting the safety and repurposing of infrastructures and resources previously used for the Ebola outbreak to care for Ebola patients.
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COVID-19 disproportionately affects the poor and vulnerable. Community health workers are poised to play a pivotal role in fighting the pandemic, especially in countries with less resilient health systems. Drawing from practitioner expertise across four WHO regions, this article outlines the targete...d actions needed at different stages of the pandemic to achieve the following goals: (1) PROTECT healthcare workers, (2) INTERRUPT the virus, (3) MAINTAIN existing healthcare services while surging their capacity, and (4) SHIELD the most vulnerable from socioeconomic shocks. While decisive action must be taken now to blunt the impact of the pandemic in countries likely to be hit the hardest, many of the investments in the supply chain, compensation, dedicated supervision, continuous training and performance management necessary for rapid community response in a pandemic are the same as those required to achieve universal healthcare and prevent the next epidemic.
BMJ Global Health2020;5:e002550. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002550
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Policy brief, 24 July 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected older people disproportionately, especially those living in long-term care facilities. In many countries, evidence shows that more than 40% of COVID-19 related deaths have been linked to long-term care facilities, with figures being as h...igh as 80% in some high-income countries. Concerted action is needed to mitigate the impact across all aspects of long-term care, including home- and community-based care, given that most users and providers of care are those who are vulnerable to severe COVID-19.
This policy brief provides 11 policy objectives and key action points to prevent and manage COVID-19 across long-term care. Its intended audience is policy makers and authorities (national, subnational and local) involved in the COVID-19 pandemic. The brief builds on currently available evidence on the measures taken to prevent, prepare for and respond to the COVID‑19 pandemic across long-term care services including care providers
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These guidelines provide new and updated recommendations on the use of point-of-care testing in children under 18 months of age and point-of-care tests to monitor treatment in people living with HIV; the treatment monitoring algorithm; and timing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people living w...ith HIV who are being treated for tuberculosis.
New recommendations launched today outline key new actions that countries can take to improve the delivery of HIV testing, treatment and care services by providing greater options for differentiated approaches such as, supporting HIV treatment start in the community, ensuring that children are diagnosed and treated early, and that viral load treatment monitoring is more accessible, focused and triggers clinical action
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13 May 2021
To avoid a reversal of progress from the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new knowledge and lessons from successful programmatic innovations are urgently needed to improve TB prevention and care. Experience can provide evidence for innovative approaches and strategies to mainta...in and scale up high-quality TB services. WHO therefore called for case studies on programmatic innovations that address emerging challenges in TB prevention and care during the pandemic in order to collect and disseminate the findings to the TB community. Between November 2020 and February 2021, a total of 23 case studies relevant to the call were accepted from 19 countries in the six regions of WHO. The lessons learnt from these country activities to ensure the continuity of essential services like TB care in the face of the crippling crisis may also inform strategies for minimizing the impact of future emerging pathogens on health services.
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El documento WHO Guidance on community mental health services: Promoción de enfoques centrados en la persona y basados en los derechos humanos forma parte del conjunto de publicaciones de la OMS Orientación y paquetes técnicos sobre servicios comunitarios de salud mental. Ofrece una descripción ...detallada de los enfoques de salud mental centrados en la persona y basados en los derechos humanos, así como ejemplos resumidos de servicios de buenas prácticas en todo el mundo. Describe los vínculos necesarios con los sectores de la vivienda, la educación, el empleo y la protección social, y presenta ejemplos de redes regionales y nacionales integradas de servicios comunitarios de salud mental. Se presentan recomendaciones específicas y pasos de acción para desarrollar servicios de salud mental comunitarios que respeten los derechos humanos y se centren en la recuperación. Este exhaustivo documento va acompañado de un conjunto de siete paquetes técnicos centrados en categorías específicas de servicios de salud mental y de orientaciones para la creación de nuevos servicios.
Orientaciones de la OMS sobre los servicios comunitarios de salud mental: Promover enfoques centrados en la persona y basados en los derechos es un conjunto de publicaciones que proporciona información y apoyo a todas las partes interesadas que deseen desarrollar o transformar su sistema y servicios de salud mental para que se ajusten a las normas internacionales de derechos humanos, incluida la Convención de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad.
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Community-based strategies play a significant role in many health systems in low- and middle-income countries, especially in light of critical shortages in the health workforce. The term community health worker has been used to refer to volunteers and salaried, professional or lay health workers wit...h a wide range of training, experience, scope of practice and integration in health systems. In the context of this study, we use the term community-based practitioner (CBPs) to reflect the diverse nature of these cadres of health workers.
CBPs provide preventive, promotive, curative and palliative services across a range of areas, including reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, control of other endemic diseases, and noncommunicable diseases. Significant evidence has emerged over the past two decades on their effectiveness, which has triggered interest in the potential to use their services to expand access to care, in particular in rural and underserved areas where deployment and retention of more qualified health workers is problematic. Calls have been made to integrate CBP programmes in human resources and health strategies, and to scale up rapidly the extent and coverage of CBP initiatives.
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The Practical Approach to Care Kit (PACK) is a health systems improvement programme designed to support the work of primary care health workers in underserved communities (like doctors, nurses, midwives, health officers, community health practitioners), strengthen the health services in which they w...ork and thereby achieve the best possible patient outcomes
You can register for free and get the PACK Global Adult Guide for free
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Countries reported disruptions in all health-care settings. In more than half of countries surveyed, many people are still unable to access care at the primary care and community care levels. Significant disruptions have also been reported in emergency care, particularly concerning given the impact... on people with urgent health needs. Thirty-six per cent of countries reported disruptions to ambulance services; 32% to 24-hour emergency room services; and 23% to emergency surgeries.
Elective surgeries have also been disrupted in 59% of countries, which can have accumulating consequences on health and well-being as the pandemic continues. Disruptions to rehabilitative care and palliative care were also reported in around half of the countries surveyed.
Major barriers to health service recovery include pre-existing health systems issues which have been exacerbated by the pandemic as well as decreased demand for care.
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This guideline aims to improve the quality of essential, routine postnatal care for women and newborns with the ultimate goal of improving maternal and newborn health and well-being. It recognizes a “positive postnatal experience” as a significant end point for all women giving birth and their n...ewborns, laying the platform for improved short- and long-term health and well-being. A positive postnatal experience is defined as one in which women, newborns, partners, parents, caregivers and families receive information, reassurance and support in a consistent manner from motivated health workers; where a resourced and flexible health system recognizes the needs of women and babies, and respects their cultural context.
This is a consolidated guideline of new and existing recommendations on routine postnatal care for women and newborns receiving facility- or community-based postnatal care in any resource setting.
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The recommendations in this guideline are intended to inform development of national and subnational health policies, clinical protocols and programmatic guides. The target audience includes national and subnational public health policy-makers, implementers and managers of maternal, newborn and chil...d health programmes, health-care facility managers, supervisors/instructors for in-service training, health workers (including midwives, auxiliary nurse-midwives, nurses, paediatricians, neonatologists, general medical practitioners and community health workers), nongovernmental organizations, professional societies involved in the planning and management of maternal, newborn and child health services, academic staff involved in research and in the pre-service education and training of health workers, and those involved in the education of parents.
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HIV, viral hepatitis and STI epidemics, particularly among people who inject drugs and other key populations, continue to be fuelled by laws and policies criminalizing sex work; drug use or possession; diverse forms of gender expression and sexuality; stigma and discrimination; gender discrimination...; violence; lack of community empowerment and other violations of human rights. These sociostructural factors limit access to health services, constrain how these services are
delivered and diminish their effectiveness.
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The African Regional Convening of the Global Initiative to Support Parents (GISP) stimulated the interest or engagement of almost 1500 individuals from 742 unique organizations in the fields of health, education, social welfare, women’s affairs, early childhood, water and sanitation, mental health..., violence prevention, innovative finance, climate, and many others. The convening united representatives across governments, civil society organizations, programme implementers, philanthropies, multilateral organizations, bilateral funders, private companies, universities, schools and day care centres, and hospitals around the common cause of supporting parents and caregivers.
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The KMC implementation strategy targets a broad audience. These include policy-makers and programme managers at national, regional and local levels, government and nongovernmental organizations working in the area of maternal and newborn care, global and national professional associations, public an...d private hospital management at all levels of care, and facility- and community-based maternal and infant care providers.
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