The Institute of Health Systems (IHS), Hyderabad, has commenced a two year course on 'Advanced Studies on Public Healthcare Delivery System'. The newly introduced education programme, would prepare a breed of professionals, who would become the new public health pioneers. They would master a rigorous academic programme and hone their skills for better healthcare delivery. The two-year APH course was inaugurated by Kumidini Devi, founder and secretary of Shivananda Rehabilitation Home, Hyderabad, on Thursday.

Speaking at the inauguration of the two-year Advanced Studies in Public Health (APH) by the Institute, Dr Mahapatra, stressed the need for improving public health delivery system in the country. For improving the delivery system it was essential to have better trained people with wider knowledge base and multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary skills.

Since the public health system in the country is under a substantial burden of rapidly changing milieu of expectations spawned by demographic changes, globalisation, privatisation and increasing demands on healthcare systems and financial resources. In spite of many advances in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and spending more on healthcare, there was no significant improvement in public health. It was stated by Dr Prasanta Mahapatra, Director, Institute of Health Systems (IHS), Hyderabad...The function was presided over by Dr P Hrishikesh, Chairman of IHS. And classes for the first batch started on Friday.

Talking to Pharmabiz, Dr C K George, Course Coordinator, said the existing healthcare systems were unable to tackle behavioural issues. He stressed the need for creating a multi-disciplinary workforce rather than restricting ourselves to the traditional view of doctors being responsible for the health of the people. "With globalisation and privatization, advancement in technology and increasing dependency on healthcare systems, we have many opportunities and challenges. To grab the opportunities and meet the challenges, we require a public health workforce which is trained in necessary skills," he said.

The APH programme aims to equip students with essential public health competencies in such areas as research methods, policy analysis and management. The curriculum promotes an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive approach to issues related to health, development and provision of health services. The students will be drawn from a broad range of medical, allied health, technical degree (with four years of full formal study after 10+2), such as MBBS, B Pharm, BSc Nursing, B Tech/BE etc or any Masters degree in Humanities/Physical or Social Sciences disciplines.

The Certificate Course in APH is a full-time two-year programme. The first year comprises a preparatory semester of six weeks followed by two semesters of course work. The preparatory semester consists of courses in academic and business communication, basic maths and personal computing. The first semester includes public health core courses which introduce students to basic concepts and tools in public health. In the second semester, the students are given the option to choose between two career-oriented subjects, viz 'health and social work' and 'health systems research'.

The second year is devoted to a stipendary internship and guided on-the-job training in appropriate institutions according to the students' area of concentration.

The fee is Rs 52,000 and Rs 44,000 respectively for the first and second semester respectively during the first year and in the second year the student gets a stipend of Rs 6,000-7,000 per month.

IHS, established in the year 1990, is a member of the National Consortium of Training Institutions in Community Health (NCTICH) under the National Institute of Health & Family Welfare (NIHFW). The Institute has been recognized by the NTR University of Health Sciences, for practical training of MD (SPM) students, and is affiliated to the Andhra Pradesh State Board of Technical Education and Training for conducting courses in Health Informatics. IHS is a member of the Health Level 7 (HL7) Organisation, an international professional body for the development and use of health informatics and standards and has academic tie-up with the Harvard School of Public Health and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).