Academic Programs and Training Services

The IHS is developing academic programmes and offering training services to build interdisciplinary skills for more efficient health system.

As part of our continued efforts to build capacity in various areas of public health, the IHS has developed three full time academic programmes: (a) The Certificate Course in Health Care Software Development (HCSD) (b) The Certificate course on Health Intranet System Administration (CHISA) (c) The Advanced Studies in Public Health (APH) programme.

Dr. Gullapalli N. Rao, Director, LVPEI, handing out certificate to a graduating HCSD student, on occasion of HCSD Commencement Ceremony, 2002

Application of information technology to the domain of health care delivery is referred to as Health Informatics. The IHS offers a training program in software development for health care field. The Certificate Course in Health Care Software Development (HCSD) is designed to develop domain knowledge in health care field among computer software engineers. Participants in the course learn about health informatic standards like the Health Level Seven (HL7), general functioning of health care institutions from the information system perspective and various types of health informatics solutions. This is a fifteen month program consisting of three months full time course work and one year internship. The program started in 2000. Intake is between 5-10 students each year. Two batches have completed the course and are working in different software development organisations. Third batch finished their training and are in their internship phase.

First batch of CHISA - Commencement Photo, October 1999. Seated (L-R) E. Srinath, Course Co-ordinator; Shri I.Y.R. Krishna Rao, MD, APBCCFC Ltd.; Shri Asutosh Mishra, MD, APSCCFC; Dr. Prasanta Mahapatra, Director, IHS & G. Kalyan Ram, System Administrator.

The Institute of Health Systems has been making efforts to build health informatics infrastructure in India. The IHS offers a training programme to build manpower to meet system administration needs of hospitals and health care organisations. This certificate course offered by the IHS is a 15 month training course consisting of three months full time training followed by one year internship. The course teaches skills in administering and implementing windows NT, which is accredited to the State Board of Technical Education and Training. CHISA graduates are more versatile as they are trained for system administration PC hardware trouble shooting and building up small local area networks. The program started in 1999. Intake is between 20-30 students each year. Many students are sponsored by the SC and BC welfare department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh. The course has been recommended by the GOI Ministry of Social Justice, to the Social Welfare administration of various states as an innovative scheme for employment. Three batches of CHISA students are already working in different hospitals and in reputed software companies. The feed back to us has been positive. And our fourth batch finished their training and are in the internship phase.

Continuing its efforts to build capacity in various areas of public health, the IHS has developed a certificate of Advanced Studies in Public Health (APH) program. The program aims to equip students with essential public health competencies in such areas as research methods, policy analysis and management. The curriculum promotes an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach to issues related to health, development and provision of health services. The program is designed to provide multiple opportunities for students to practice public health skills and foster critical thinking about issues addressed by them. Students are drawn from a broad range of medical, allied health, technical, humanities, physical and social science disciplines. The program requires four semesters of full time course work and two inter semester field placements. The first batch started in January 2003 with four students each coming from different parts of the country (Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, and Orissa). The Government of Gujarat sanctioned sponsorship for two candidates in the first year.

Public health related training services fall broadly into two groups namely, (a) Health System Operation (b) Health System Research Methodology

The IHS has involved itself in development of human resources for better health care in Tribal and remote areas. The Institute’s work on Tribal area health services started with an early study on potentiality and relevance of herbal and traditional medicine on health care in tribal areas. The Institute built an ethnobotanical database on medicinal flora in Tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh (MEDFLOR). These research activities were followed up by developing special course and teaching materials to train private health workers in Tribal areas. Some training programs were organised in Bhadrachalam ITDA areas. Thereafter, training programmes for medical officers and community development officers were organised in Paderu ITDA area. These activities lead to the development of more regularly offered training programme on Managing Primary Health Care in Remote Areas (MPHCR) designed specifically to benefit medical officers, ITDA officials, and PHC Extension officers in Tribal Areas. This two week programme builds required skills in organisational behaviour, public administration, rapid assessment of health situation, program management, monitoring and evaluation, accounting and financial management, working with tribal communities, disciplinary procedures, conduct rules, and office procedures. The programme also reinforces selected technical aspects of important public health problems more the use of computer applications in simple operating environments to resolve recurrent organisational and management challenges. The Health Level 7 (HL7) training programme, creates awareness about the HL 7 protocols which is an international standard for electronic data exchange in all health care environments. The programme covers all major modules including patient administration and observation reporting from a developers point of view. Software firms interested to develop health care software particularly for export usually avail of this program to familiarise their developers with the HL7 standard. commonly encountered in remote areas. Nine batches of PHC officers have been trained so far in managing primary health care in remote areas. The IHS training programme on Safe Management of Bio-medical Waste aims at raising awareness on hazards related to Bio-medical waste management, provide information on safe Bio-medical waste management practices, raising awareness about the policies and legal framework on Bio-medical waste and transmitting basic skills for development and implementation of Biomedical waste management policy. The IHS has been developing training programmes to harness the opportunities offered by computing and telecommunication technologies, in design, implementation and maintenance of robust, sustainable health care environments. The Institute’s programme on "Smart use of computers by health executives", focuses on  the use of computer applications in simple operating environments to resolve recurrent organisational and management challenges. The Health Level 7 (HL7) training programme, creates awareness about the HL 7 protocols which is an international standard for electronic data exchange in all health care environments. The programme covers all major modules including patient administration and observation reporting from a developers point of view. Software firms interested to develop health care software particularly for export usually avail of this program to familiarise their developers with the HL7 standard.

 National Burden of Disease Workshop for ICMR Scientists - Valedictory Function on 19th November, 2001.

These programs are designed to build national and regional health system research capacity.To generate required evidence and information for health policy, the Institute has sustained research on estimation of National Burden of Disease. Most countries, lack national capacity in burden of disease research methods. Fortunately, the Institute of Health Systems has been involved in this frontier area of research right from the beginning, starting with the publication of the Global Burden of Disease estimates in the 1993 World Development Report. The IHS is the only centre in the South and East Asian region with substantial expertise in national burden of disease studies. Recognising this, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) approached the Institute to train its scientists in burden of disease study methodology and research on causes of death  A two week workshop was designed to train epidemiologists in the burden of disease estimation method. Two scientists each from various ICMR laboratories attended the workshops conducted at the IHS in two batches during November, and December, 2001. Two scientists from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Research, Chandigarh also participated. The IHS is continuing to assist in consolidation of this capacity through e-mail support, and follow up workshops organised by the ICMR. More training programs in related areas of the burden of disease research methodology are contemplated.