India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre, a collaboration between the Swedish Trade Commissioner's Office, AIIMS, New Delhi, and AIIMS, Jodhpur, has launched 'Skill For Scale', an e-learning initiative designed to equip nurses with hands-on practical knowledge and skills to practice the latest patient care for managing non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Certified by AIIMS, Jodhpur, and endorsed by the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), the programs will allow nurses from across the country to register for free, and learn at their own pace.
In its first phase, the program is focusing on Diabetes management prevention and awareness based on a world-class comprehensive curriculum created from diverse resources available within the NCD domain following the NPCDCS guidelines.
The 'Skill for Scale' program is aimed to upskill 5000 nurses across the country within this year. Sanjeev Misra, Director, AIIMS Jodhpur said, "NCDs burden is increasing significantly in India and is already accounting for more than 60% of deaths. This burden of NCDs is expected to increase further over the coming years but the number of doctors with specializations available to treat these increasing numbers is very limited. Through this initiative, we are trying to bridge the knowledge gap that exists at the point of care for patients”. This e-learning mobile compatible program is pegged at two levels-basic and advanced and includes training of 20-24 hours to be completed at the student's own pace. "The Government's recognition of this program will go a long way to deliver accurate health information and ensure safe essential health services. We will continue to focus on upskilling the health workforce and bring impactful solutions locally and globally," said Dr. Anil Kukreja, VP Medical Affairs and Regulatory, AstraZeneca India.
By the end of the training, nurses will be able to recognize risk factors, causes, pathophysiology, screening methods, diagnostic tests, and management of diabetes. They will gain an understanding to initiating timely action for confirmatory diagnosis and appropriate treatment, make timely referrals of complicated cases, follow standard treatment protocols, counsel and interact on the importance of early screening of diabetes, educate the community on the adoption of a healthy lifestyle and assist them to overcome barriers, myths, and misconceptions.
Cecilia Oskarssoch, Swedish Trade Commissioner to India said: “ISHIC was created to address the healthcare challenges in the country through key pillars – technology, protocol and process, and capability building. We are deeply encouraged to see the support these programs have garnered from the government, key industry organizations which are absolutely crucial to be able to implement such a program at a national level and encourage wider use to be able to deliver benefits to the end patient and create an impact on the burden of healthcare. We will continue to evolve these programs to be able to bring about holistic benefit to patients in their journey of managing non-communicable diseases”.
