Home »   Print

Strategies

Health Education learning Development: Our aim is to provide educational information, advice and facilitate the implementation of internationally credible educational best practice within healthcare courses.  Achieving this aim will require activity in the areas of curriculum planning, teaching and learning activities and assessment.  Evaluation of the outcomes of the course and teaching quality will be an integral part of this process.  By twinning Palestinian groups with international centres of excellence, joint programmes, courses and exit examinations with certification will be established

Continuing Education for Healthcare Professionals (CEHP): This aims to support the needs of hospital and community based HPs in maintaining a contemporary base of scientific knowledge appropriate to their regular professional activities. The CEHP program will strive to make available a sufficient volume of presentations in all disciplines by reputable specialists, which provide ample opportunities to advance knowledge and clinical skills so that the quality of patient care will be continually enhanced.  

In addition to correcting outdated clinical knowledge and encouraging appropriate changes in HP’s approach to the solution of healthcare problems, the objectives of CEHP programs include the scientific and clinical application of new knowledge, skills and techniques and alteration of current practices, when appropriate.  

Teaching methods will be tailored to the specific needs of hospital and community based staff including: didactic lectures; clinical case studies; live demonstrations by audio-visual presentations; hands on participatory workshops in which HP’s actively perform a particular procedure with ongoing faculty discussion; and self-directed learning utilizing text, audiovisual and computer-assisted instruction.  
 
Health Professionals Career Development: Success depends partly on the educational skills of its teaching staff and partly on student commitment.  Most will have received no formal training in this role.  A well conceived and acceptable educational staff development programme will be a vital part of the Centre’s role.
 
Our aim is to assist in developing the ability of teachers to plan and deliver high quality undergraduate and postgraduate educational activities.  This will include targeted teacher training activities and developing academic responsibility.  Co-operative relationships will be established with other organisations both in Palestine and overseas with well recognised education centres such as Dundee in the UK.   A limited number of short intensive courses in overseas centres of excellence will be funded and made available for Palestinians. 
 
Health Sciences Research: A credible Health Sciences Education Centre must have a successful research programme.  This will be centred on pioneering novel learning techniques but will also provide a facility for accessing R&D grants, gaining sponsorships and generally facilitating research in all health sciences 
 
Educational Facilities: Methods of teaching practice are evolving rapidly in response to changes in the traditional learning environment (such as teaching hospitals) and in educational technology.
 
Our aim is to facilitate the provision of a range of state-of-the-art facilities to enhance teaching and learning.  This will include responsibility for operating clinical skills centres and encouraging the use of information technology for communication between staff and students and for distance and independent learning. 
 
Collaborative Activities: A successful Palestinian Health Science Education Centre must develop a network of local, national and international contacts and collaborative activities.
 
Our aim is to develop effective interprofessional collaborative links with local groups within and without existing schools in Palestine.  Links will be established with other institutions and organisations with an interest in health sciences education locally and overseas.  Such collaboration will be directed at activities of direct benefit to the Centre in enhancing teaching as well as educational research while increasingly being seen as having an international perspective.  In particular, we will seek recognition as a UNESCO UNI-TWIN facility. 
 
Information Technology: The Centre must install and provide resources and then develop an IT strategy relating to the support of curricula and teaching. Our aim is to develop a functionally effective Networked Learning Environment which will effectively support the management of the curriculum.  This will involve developing a web-based teaching and learning environment linked to effective tools for course administration and communication between staff and students.  It will also develop teaching methods via the use of telemedicine/videoconferencing technology to support harmonious and uniform curriculum content delivery to various sites in Palestine.  
 
Telemedicine:  A well organized telemedicine system for exchanging information and knowledge in clinical practice could play a key role in enhancing the quality of diagnosis and therapy in Palestine.  Telemedicine serves as a tool for developing local skills even in remote or rural areas and could be especially relevant to Palestine where travel of patients and healthcare workers is often severely constrained.  In theory it could connect a 'non-expert’ say in chemical burns in an outlying area with an 'expert’ in a Palestinian specialist Burns Centre who is in turn able to connect with an 'international expert’ in an organized global matrix of knowledge.