Continuing distance education: a capacity-building tool for the de-isolation of care professionals and researchers.

BACKGROUND

There are large disparities in access to health-care professionals (HCP) in low-income African countries, leading to imbalanced and suboptimal health delivery. Part of the difficulty is recruiting and retaining care professionals to work in isolated settings.

AIM

To evaluate the impact of distance continuing education as a way to build capacity, increase satisfaction and enhance the performance of care professionals in these isolated health-care facilities.

SETTING

Care professionals using RAFT (Telemedicine Network in French-speaking Africa) in isolated care facilities.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Within RAFT, an organizational framework and computer-based tools have been developed and evolved to provide useful, qualitative, applicable training material.

PROGRAM EVALUATION

The activity, satisfaction, perceptions and impact of RAFT on remote health-care workers are being monitored. RAFT's potential to improve the recruitment, satisfaction and retention of care professionals in remote settings is widely recognized; however, the actual impact on the performance and quality of care remains to be demonstrated.