Tailor-made

Tailor-made courses are provided in response to requests from clients such as educational and research institutes, NGOs and local or national governments and ministries. Examples of previous courses include:

• Communication and teamwork for health
• District health course
• Emergency aid / disaster preparedness
• Gender and health
• Health financing
• Health management information systems, monitoring and evaluation
• Health policy and management
• Health promotion
• HIV/AIDS and urban management: Strategies and techniques for managers and decision-makers
• HIV/AIDS in a multi-sectoral perspective
• Human resource development for health
• Participatory approaches and qualitative research
• Quality assurance in health
• Rapid appraisal
• Strategic health care management in international health

Communication and teamwork for health

Good communication and teamwork are prerequisites for quality service delivery in the health care sector. This module offers health care teams a variety of techniques for analysing the strengths and weaknesses of individuals and the team as a whole. Various tools and exercises to improve communication and to facilitate teamwork are used in the course

District health course

District managers need to be able to analyse the health problems of the population in their district, identify the population's needs and develop and manage effective health programmes. Knowledge and skills in planning and management are prerequisites for district health managers, especially in the context of decentralization, but appropriate training in these areas is often unavailable.

This course enables future district health trainers to become resourceful course designers and effective teachers.  Participants study all aspects of district health management and learn to design courses for district health teams in their country. They are trained in how to obtain relevant data for decision making, how to work with communities and authorities and how to function in a team. Participants will then design or review their own district health course and will learn how to transfer information and teach skills to district health team members.

Emergency aid / disaster preparedness

Based on the Golama course, which prepares Dutch military doctors for deployment overseas, KIT has developed a module to prepare health care workers for emergency situations and disasters. Topics include:

• protocol for rapid data collection and analysis for emergency relief programmes
• disaster epidemiology
• withdrawal of emergency aid
• stress and psycho-trauma
• nutrition under emergency conditions
• disease outbreak control

Gender and health

This course introduces concepts and issues in gender and health and provides a gender analysis in relation to specific health issues. Further topics include mainstreaming gender and health; gender, human rights and health; and developing an action plan to address gender issues.

Health financing

This course provides an introduction to concepts and issues in health financing and health economics. 
Health resource allocation is presented using the Health Resource Allocation Game. Other topics include:

• Defining markets, demand and supply and market imperfections in the health sector
• Mapping resource flows in national health systems through national health accounts
• Health care financing: public funding, health insurance and  user charges
• Conducting cost effectiveness studies and economic appraisals of health projects
• Budgeting
• Writing a financial report as part of an annual health report

Health management information systems, monitoring and evaluation

This module emphasizes the monitoring and evaluation aspects of health care management. Working with data from a particular project or case study, participants develop indicators for monitoring and evaluation, practice data collection and analysis and try to formulate management decisions based on their results.

Health policy and management

This module for policy makers at district level and above introduces the concept of health systems: how they are defined in relationship to the different determinants of health, the goals of health systems, how they are organized and how they perform. This information provides the basis for discussing and understanding current health reform processes.  Course topics include:

• concepts of decentralization, integration and intersectoral coordination
• health management information systems
• involvement of individual consumers and communities
• how these issues relate to equity, efficiency and quality of health services delivery

The module aims at translating policy statements into realistic and comprehensive health plans through a process-approach to situational analysis and needs assessment; priority setting; participatory planning; and the development of indicators for monitoring and evaluation.

Health promotion

This module treats a specific health topic such as HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive health, leprosy or a specific target group such as teenagers, commercial sex workers, illiterate women. The content is adapted to the situation for which training is needed:

• A historic overview of different theories and approaches
• Problem analysis of health promotion issues
• Overview of different strategies in health promotion: mass media, IEC and community development, counselling and communication
• Planning, implementing and monitoring a programme
• Evaluating health promotion programmes
• Developing a proposal for a HP programme

HIV/AIDS and urban management: Strategies and techniques for managers and decision-makers

City managers and decision-makers face complex new urban issues in the face of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Not only must they manage the immediate consequences of HIV/AIDS within their own organizations and plan for capacity replacement in their own workforce, but they must also manage the city-wide impact.

It is critical that urban development staff integrate their knowledge of HIV/AIDS and its consequences for development within their regular planning and management activities. This requires refining existing techniques and developing new planning and management approaches to effectively incorporate HIV/AIDS into urban management. The course treats four main themes over a 2-week period:

Theme 1 – Raising knowledge on basic facts, spread and impact of HIV/AIDS
Theme 2 – Understanding the impact of HIV/AIDS on development and urban management
Theme 3 – Incorporating HIV/AIDS in urban planning and management
Theme 4 – Designing workplace policies and actions within  organisations

HIV/AIDS in a multi-sectoral perspective

HIV/AIDS is no longer regarded as only a health problem but as an issue that affects all developmental sectors in society. Strategic multi-sectoral planning for HIV/AIDS has become increasingly important to dealing with HIV transmission and the negative impact of HIV/AIDS on communities.

This course focuses on providing participants with a basic framework for multi-sectoral responses to HIV/AIDS, the issues at stake in the different sectors and the role each sector has to play. It will also discuss methods for practical application in planning and implementation by both the public and the private sector, as well as NGOs/CBOs.

Human resource development for health

This tailor-made version of our regular course on human resource development for health is available on request. Course contents are adapted to local needs from the following topics:

• Introduction to human resource development
• Staff supply and skills mix
• Human resource policies and plans
• Performance management and motivation
• Training and continuing education: training needs assessment, curriculum and lesson plan development, teaching methodologies and HLM, monitoring and evaluation
• Human resource development and gender
• Human resource development and HIV/AIDS

Participatory approaches and qualitative research

This course introduces participatory action and qualitative research for health, including concepts, process and history. The use, advantages and disadvantages of various techniques (visual projective techniques-PLA, interviews, focus group discussions) are discussed, as is the role of the researcher in participatory research and issues of ethics and quality assurance. The course addresses analysing qualitative data, reporting qualitative research and designing a study.

Quality assurance in health

This course introduces various concepts of quality assurance (QA):

• Assessing client perspectives of QA and developing quality assurance mechanisms to address QA from a client´s perspective
• Developing criteria for monitoring and evaluating QA
• Integrating clinical and maternal audits in health systems
• Establishing QA mechanisms in a health system
• Developing action

Rapid appraisal

This research method allows a great deal of information to be gathered over a limited time period. The information can be used to clarify quantitative data, to explore selected issues or to develop health interventions adapted to the local situation. Course participants will investigate a health care topic using rapid appraisal, including interviewing clients and providers from different levels of care.  By using a practice-based approach in the course, participants learn how to use rapid appraisal correctly in the work environment while gaining valuable insight into the functioning of their health care system.

Strategic health care management in international health

This course prepares professionals in the health sector to take an active role in the strategic management of their health care organizations. The curriculum focuses on advanced issues in strategic planning, organizational development and management systems integration within the context of provision and organization of health services in low and middle income societies.