Regional News

From 24 to October 28 were held in Chile last several meetings designed to share with organizations and health institutions in Chile on the prospects of bringing the Node VCPHChile and to specify an action plan in the short term Node Virtual Campus Public Health  in Chile under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, PWR-Chile and the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Chile ASOFAMECH.

In order to analyze the prospects of creating a node of the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH) in Uruguay was held in Montevideo from 17 October 21 different meetings with representatives of PAHO and leaders of institutions Uruguay developments in the field of e-learning in health.

These exchanges also aimed to assess the current development of the National Observatory of Human Resources in Uruguay and the possibilities of creating the Subregional Centre for the Southern Cone.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO / WHO) and the Universidad del Norte in Colombia, have issued the invitation to participate in the "Virtual communication Diploma in public health risk."

This Diploma course haven't cost to participants and is for communicators and health professionals from the ministries of Health, and nonprofit organizations, including the United Nations system. The call also goes to teachers and professors of communication faculties of universities in the public or nonprofit to the regional level.

On October 27th  to October 1st, was held at the headquarters of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington D.C. , Ministers of Health of Member States of PAHO. Among the topics discussed, it was the use of virtual education programs for health personnel to transmit knowledge and skills in health systems based on primary care, highlighting the advantages and rule in favor for this type of learning on the grounds that E-Learning will help to train more human resources in the region based on primary care systems.

That is why in the Blog of 50 PAHO Directing Council has published the following press release:

The CIESS node in the network of the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH), offers to the international community a call for the concourse to create the graphic identity of the "Regional Strategy educational program citizenship for social safety culture" Social Security for all."

This program was presented by the Inter-American Social Security Studies (CISS) as part of the XXVI General Assembly of the CISS was recently held in Panama.

The concourse is open to those who wish to participate and the deadline for submission of materials is November 26 this year.

On October 7 and 8th,  2010, was held in the District of Santa Fe de Veraguas, Panama,  the "Meeting of Mayors." This event was attended by mayors and delegates from mayors of the municipalities of Arraiján, Taboga, Santiago, San Francisco, Calobre, Rio de Jesus and Kusapín, and they signed an agreement to promote the Millennium Development Goals, through strategies territorial development of the Ministry for Agricultural Development (MIDA), the strategy Voices Faces and Places (VFP) of the Ministry of Health (MINSA) and the Pan American Health Organization, World Health Organ

Last September was implemented in the portal of VCPH a new Facebook module, the social network with more users in the world.

Medical Residency

During days 7 to October 22 will held in the classroom of the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH), Second Virtual Seminary of Health Human Resources which will address the issue of medical residency.

The Medical Residency Seminar aims to open a space for dialogue, exchange and reflection among participants with the purpose of analyzing the general problems of medical residency and identify joint ways to overcome them.

The seminar will consist of two forums as meeting spaces between all participants to address and discuss two topics of current interest:

On September 21th, developed the 5th meeting of the Technical Team of the VCPH Country Nodes as on previous occasions, was conducted through the Elluminate room intended for exchange of work of the Technical Team on the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH).

This meeting was attended by teams Nodes: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay and technical teams of BIREME and the Regional VCPH.

From 13th to 17th September, in the premises of the National Nurses Association and the School of Nursing at the University of Panama, was held the face-week on the Virtual Course Management Palliative Care Program of Panama.

This course is an initiative of the Ministry of Health and Social Security Fund of Panama with the collaboration of the University of Panama, FUNDACANCER, ANCEC, the Palliative Pro-care Association HOSPES and the sponsorship of the Pan American Health Organization through Virtual Campus of Public Health

On September 15 was made available to users of the VCPH classroom the virtual course "Tobacco and Public Health: from theory to practice." This course is freely available and has been created both in Spanish and English.

The course consists of four modules: Introductory, Protection, Prevention and Cessation. The grouping is purely didactic, because most of the topics are related and complemented by the modules.

The general objectives of the course are:

Last August began the virtual course "Pharmaceutical Services Renewed based on PHC", with an enrollment of 43 participants.

The virtual course on pharmaceutical services based on PHC for planners, whose vision is to support the development of pharmaceutical services with social relevance, integrated health systems based on PHC, which meet the needs of the individual, family and community. The roles and functions of the Pharmaceutical Services must be well defined so as to promote healthy lifestyles, access and rational drug use, contributing to the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

In the early days of September was held in the classroom of the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH) a major upgrade in the service of Elluminate.

This new version has new features that will be very helpful for the development of the sessions, as well as for access and organization of the various rooms within the course

The possibilities offered by Elluminate now to prepare in advance and upload the entire session before the activities and learning resources to be used in online courses, we will be implementing to the next year 2011 with a prior process of training.

The electronic version of manual: Biostatistics: Methods and Applications of UD Biostatistics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaga, also includes videos, test questions and is now accessible from the Virtual Campus of Public Health..

The course aims to introduce students to the first steps of Biostatistics, in an intuitive and real, with videos, and content questions about:

From August 25 to 27,were held in Mexico the First Regional Public Health Competency.

For more information about the event you can visit the following link:

First Regional Workshop on Public Health Competency

From August 7 is being developed in the classroom of Virtual Campus of Public Health (CVSP) the Seminar Update Vitual Health Human Resources.

The Inaugural Conference and the debate about Health Careers were made by Mr. Gregorio Montero, Deputy Minister of Civil Service. Dominican Republic, Dr. Carlos Rosales, Regional Human Resources Advisor. PAHO / WHO and Dr. Rodolfo Kaufmann, Program Coordinator of the Adolescent Health and the Project Consultant EFPH (Essential Functions of Public Health), Ministry of Health of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The course Pharmacovigilance of medicines, vaccines and biological: a pro-active. PAHO / WHO 2010 "began on August 6, this is a course with a virtual component, which will develop individual work, group sessions, real-time and working with tutors.

Additionally there will be a face meeting in Guayaquil, Ecuador during the month of September and the curriculum of the course will include the completion of a work of intervention where participants develop their professional activities.

The virtual course: "Designing educational programs and materials for Learning Network" began on 5 August, in its 3rd version, with an enrollment of 59 participants, many of those enrolled are students of the course graduates virtual " Tutors for Learning Network "also developed in the classroom of the VCPH

The course aims to provide opportunities for participants to experience the process of designing educational programs and materials in virtual collaborative environments, utilizing the communication tools and production of digital interactive environment.

To start the Specialization in Primary Health Care for the Family in the distance mode, was held last Thursday, August 5, in Mato Grosso do Sul, the inaugural lecture of the course.

This specialization is promoted by Fiocruz Cerrado Pantanal and the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, with the support and funding from the Ministry of Labour Management and Health Education, the Ministry of Health, through the ANU -SUS.

The Director of the ENSP, Antonio Ivo de Carvalho, who is part of the Interinstitutional Commission on the UNA-SUS, was present at the meeting with about 500 professionals listed in the course.

On 5 August, started the virtual course of Essential Public Health Functions (EPHF). This is the second version of the course and aims to develop leadership and management skills of the "Essential Public Health Functions" to contribute to public health practice, strengthening national health systems and improving the health of the population.

It adopts a modular structure with an introductory module familiarization VCPH platform, four thematic learning modules, and a final module that presents a proposal for intervention designed to solve a critical problem in relation to any EPHF, which will be selected by the participant from the beginning of the course.

In San Jose, Costa Rica will celebrete  on 3 to 5 November, the XV International Congress on Technology and Distance Education. The conference invites reflection on the challenges and innovations in higher education compared to twenty-first century student.

The themes are:

Last July was launched the new website of PALTEX, which will be integrated into the website of the Pan American Health Organization in the region and linked to Web sites PALTEX in country offices.

On this new page priority information is included on the values, structure, functioning and the achievements of PALTEX for them to serve the general public. Have also created tools for virtual dialogue.

The creators of the project have high hopes that it will become in a consultation for students, teachers, managers and health workers to health ministries, universities and professional organizations.

On 20 July, was held the 4th meeting of the Technical Team of the VCPH Nodes of Countries of the year 2010. The meeting was held in the Elluminate room, this room has been designed for the exchange of work of the Technical Team and is in the classroom of the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH).

On July 15 began the first version of the Virtual Course for Trainers of Physicians with a focus on Primary Health Care

This course which started its activity with an enrollment of 65 students, aims to support the processes of change in medical schools and health services involved in the development of PHC renewed its area of influence, from the reflection on professional practice.

The program aims to provide opportunities for participants to analyze, exchange and experience developing new approaches and new training practices, utilizing the communication tools and virtual interactive environment production.

The First Virtual Course "Leadership in Human Resources  for Health " developed since the space created for Argentina in the Virtual Classroom for countries of the region, began on 14 June.

This course has had three regional editions, which have participated regarding the Ministry of Health RRHH and the various provinces of Argentina.The country was represented also by tutors and experts who participated in his dictation and evaluation.

On June 14 began the 1st Virtual Course "Management of Palliative Care Programs" and is being developed from the space created for Panama in the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH) Classroom to countries of the Region.

This course is the first developed in Panama on VCPH, has an enrollment of 48 students from different provinces of the country and has a duration of 165 hours over 115 hours of networking and 50 face work hours.

Soon be published on our website the call to the Second International Congress MoodleHealth 2011 "The Moodle Learning Network and Health", to be held between 8 and 10 February in Havana, Cuba, and which will be organized by the Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH) of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Node VCPH of Cuba coordinated by the National School of Public Health and INFOMED.

Medical Careers and Residential Health

During the months of August and October, two seminars will held for upgrade of human resources in health.

These seminars raised expectations of a rich dynamic interplay based on open dialogue, confluent and creative about the conditions and possibilities that owns each of the topics to be analyzed, perceived trends as well as the role that the participants have in the generation of new contributions to be observers and creators in the management of these processes in each country.

Between 6 and 10 June, was performed a visit to Peru, where various activities were developed to analyze the current situation and development prospects of the Node of Virtual Campus of Public Health (VCPH) Peru.

As part of the V Andean Development of Human Resources for Health, Dr. Joseph B. Jardines, General Coordinator of the CVSP, gave a presentation on the Virtual Campus of Public Health.

We analyzed the current situation Node VCPH Peru with Dr. Victor Cuba, Dean of the School of Public Health, Cayetano Heredia University and Coordinator of Node CVSP Peru, scheduling the relaunch of the node for the next three months.

On June 3, started the Virtual Course IV: Leadership of Human Resources for Health.The course has an enrollment of 72 students seeking further information and the basis for reflection, generating new strategies of action for the transformation of the problems.

This course is delivered via the network learning using virtual media, through the Virtual Campus of Public Health, so that provides access to multiple "managers" in their own area of work and creates networks for exchanging experiences and debates on these important