An e-mentoring platform, designed to aid Covid-19 responders, has been launched in Bangladesh.
The United States (US) based platform called Extension for Community Healthcare Outcome (ECHO) was inaugurated by US Ambassador to Bangladesh Earl Miller and Acting Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Bangladesh John Allelo on Sunday morning.
The e-mentoring platform will deliver Covid-19 case management learning to doctors in public and private health facilities across Bangladesh at a time when the country is in fear of a second wave of Covid-19 infections.
Earl Miller, expressing his pleasure at being a part of the innovative e-mentoring initiative to strengthen Bangladesh’s health system’s capacity, said: “I am confident that with the enhanced capacity provided by the project, Bangladeshi doctors will be able to manage Covid-19 cases and contain the spread of the disease more effectively.”
Director General Health Services Professor Dr ABM Khurshid Alam, who chaired the program, said specialist doctors will be able to expand their knowledge through this platform.
How the platform works
According to Save the Children, Dhaka Medical College Hospital and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) have been selected as mentor institutes, and about 40 public and private hospitals have been selected as learner hospitals.
In the initial phase, learner hospitals will present their findings from Covid-19 cases to the national professors of medicine at mentor institutes and learn from them through knowledge sharing and coaching.
The program is expected to benefit 1,000 doctors directly. Another 3,000 doctors are also expected to indirectly benefit by connecting to these interactive learning sessions.
The initiative will also include learning and sharing sessions with the University of Michigan (through its Internal Medicine Residency Program and Center for Global Health Equity), which will partner with Bangladesh medical universities in a later phase of the program.
