Health management leadership course concluded at PHDC

Lahore: A 15 days extensive “Health management leadership course” concluded at PHDC, Lahore. About 24 senior officers from Health department working as EDOs, DO(H)s, MSes and  other administrative assignments attended the course. The course was especially designed to keep health managers working in the field or in hospitals at strategic positions aware about the recent advancement in health stewardship and management.

In addition the course was optimized according to the perceived deficiencies in certain areas of management such as procurement, accounting, service rules and disciplinary proceedings. Special resource persons, well versed in these areas were invited to deliver lectures to the participants and share their practical experiences with them. Although routine short courses are quite common in health department but this extensive training differs from those in two important aspects. First, it was specially tailored for mid and upper level health managers for the first time, who will serve on important managerial assignments. Hence from now onwards every officer found eligible to be posted against an administrative post will have to complete this course.

The spokesman of Health Department said that, for those who are already serving will also be required to undergo this process. Second, this is the first step towards the creation of a dedicated health academy that was not only included in the list of demands by the YDA, PMA and other doctor’s association and agreed upon by the government but also an urgent need. In addition, it will also provide a technical and learning support for the “administrative cadre” that is being created in near future.

Participants were generally satisfied about the initiative, nevertheless they pointed out some deficiencies which will be rectified in the next round. Participants told that Management Information Systems, Health data analysis, Health Care Financing and Health Economics are several topics that must be included in the coming sessions. There is another proposal that an extensive but short course be organized to impart training on the above mentioned topics .Health department is seriously working on these suggestions and within a week an extensive training module will be created. Participants were also given e-evaluation forms through emails and their responses will be a valuable input for designing such ventures in future.

It is pertinent to mention that this is one of the  step towards service structure implementation- a long standing demand- from doctors’ community that is already being fulfilled by health department at extraordinary pace.