Post From the Field: Operations Research Training in Sudan
Salam alaykum from Sudan!
Steve Gloyd and I have been in Khartoum, where our HAI-Sudan office is located, to facilitate the first Operations Research (OR) workshop in collaboration with the Sudan Public Health Institute (PHI). The PHI was created in 2009 and since then has been a tour de force in creating learning opportunities and coordinating research for all the departments of the Ministry of Health.
This was our first OR course held in Sudan. Over the course of 4 days, we held sessions on various topics of OR, including the fundamentals of OR, quantitative methodologies, quality improvement methodologies, and how to translate OR into policy change at a state and federal level.
Thirty staff members from the PHI and the Federal Ministry of Health divided into 5 groups to develop OR protocols related to their areas of work, including maternal child health programs, increasing vaccination rates for pregnant women, addressing the issue of low institutional birth rates in rural areas, and improving reporting systems for essential health programs. By the end of the workshop, participants were energized and ready to conduct research on their own programs with the ultimate aim of strengthening the overall health system -- and improving the health of the Sudanese people.
It was a great honor and privilege to work with such a dynamic, brilliant group of professionals from all levels of the MOH in Sudan. We are also really excited about our new collaboration with the PHI, which we see as the beginning of a long and enriching relationship, both with HAI and with all the other cohorts of teams that have gone through our OR workshops throughout the world.
Shoukran ("thank you") to our warm and generous hosts, and I think I speak for Steve and myself when I say we can't wait to come back and see these protocols in action!
PHI staff attend the OR workshop (Photo: HAI/J. Robinson)
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