Month: August 2015

Improving Access to Healthcare in Nepal

Posted on by Amanda

Since 2008, Possible (formerly known as Nyaya Health) has been committed to delivering high-quality, low-cost healthcare to the people of Nepal. The non-governmental organization was founded by a group that includes Duncan Maru, MD, PhD, and brothers Ryan Schwarz, MD, MBA, and Dan Schwarz, MD, MPH, who are former or current residents with the Doris and Howard Hiatt Residency in Global Health Equity and Internal Medicine for Brigham and Women’s Family Care Associates at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital.

Cracked walls of the Bhirkot Health Post that was damaged during the earthquake and will be one of the health posts rebuilt by Possible in 2015.
Cracked walls of the Bhirkot Health Post that was damaged during the earthquake and
will be one of the health posts rebuilt by Possible in 2015.

Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries, but it also has some of the most progressive healthcare policies. The country’s constitution guarantees the right to health and universal healthcare for the poor. However, in rural areas, millions don’t get the care they need from the traditional private, public and philanthropic approaches to healthcare. That’s where Possible and its durable approach to healthcare come into play. Durable healthcare is a public–private partnership that enables a nonprofit healthcare company to be paid by the government to deliver healthcare within the government’s infrastructure.  It brings together the quality of the private sector, access of the public sector and innovation enabled by philanthropy. Core financing is tied to performance. Read the full story.

BWH Nurse Mentors Partner with Haitian Nurses to Improve Care

Posted on by Amanda

A group of dedicated BWH nurses are helping to make a lasting impact on patient care, nursing education and scholarship in Haiti through a unique mentorship program.

Every summer for the past five years, the BWH Nursing department has hosted cohorts of nurses from Haiti for four days, pairing them with BWH nurses on patient care floors, who serve as mentors. This initiative is part of the International Nurse Faculty Partnership called the Regis College Haiti Project, a collaboration between the Regis College School of Nursing, Science and Health Professions, Partners In Health (PIH), Haiti’s Ministry of Health, and Haiti’s State University that strives to improve access to quality health care in Haiti by addressing the acute nursing shortage and the call for advancement of nursing education.

Nurses from Haiti visit BWH
In June, BWH welcomed Haitian nurse educators to CWN 9 for four days of clinical shadowing and discussion.

The rigorous education and leadership program is offered to Haitian nursing faculty across Haiti, who enroll in the master’s of Nursing program at Regis and spend time in clinical settings as part of their learning experience. “Spending time in a clinical setting is absolutely essential to learning,” said Patrice Nicholas, DNSc, DHL (Hon.), MPH, MS, RN, ANP, FAAN, director of Global Health in the BWH Center for Nursing Excellence.

Continue reading “BWH Nurse Mentors Partner with Haitian Nurses to Improve Care” →

Community Trust and the Ebola Endgame

Posted on by Amanda

What must be done in order to end the Ebola epidemic?

BWH’s Ranu Dhillon, MD, and J. Daniel Kelly, MD, of the Wellbody Alliance, co-authored a perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to propose some answers to this pressing question, focusing specifically on Guinea.

The doctors outline the importance of gaining trust and enhancing community respect for response efforts as Ebola teams engage with communities and try to end the epidemic. In the article, they explain how community distrust, rooted in recent decades of misrule and political tumult, enables Ebola to persist. They write:

“In Guinea, community distrust enables Ebola to persist in areas where people continue to hide the sick, conduct funerals in secret, and elude contact tracing…We need to build trust with communities and enhance their respect for response efforts if we are to overcome these challenges and bring the epidemic to an end. Communities are not uncooperative because they are backward or uneducated. On the contrary, they harbor a distrust of Ebola response efforts that is completely rational, given their experience during recent decades of misrule and political tumult…”

Read the full perspective, called “Community Trust and the Ebola Endgame,” in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Ranu Dhillon, MD, is a member of the BWH Division of Global Health Equity and an advisor to the president of Guinea on the Ebola response. J. Daniel Kelly, MD, is the co-founder of Wellbody Alliance, which works alongside Partners In Health in Sierra Leone.

Community Trust and the Ebola Endgame

Posted on by Amanda

What must be done in order to end the Ebola epidemic?

BWH’s Ranu Dhillon, MD, and J. Daniel Kelly, MD, of the Wellbody Alliance, co-authored a perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine to propose some answers to this pressing question, focusing specifically on Guinea.

The doctors outline the importance of gaining trust and enhancing community respect for response efforts as Ebola teams engage with communities and try to end the epidemic. In the article, they explain how community distrust, rooted in recent decades of misrule and political tumult, enables Ebola to persist. They write:

“In Guinea, community distrust enables Ebola to persist in areas where people continue to hide the sick, conduct funerals in secret, and elude contact tracing…We need to build trust with communities and enhance their respect for response efforts if we are to overcome these challenges and bring the epidemic to an end. Communities are not uncooperative because they are backward or uneducated. On the contrary, they harbor a distrust of Ebola response efforts that is completely rational, given their experience during recent decades of misrule and political tumult…”

Read the full perspective, called “Community Trust and the Ebola Endgame,” in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Ranu Dhillon, MD, is a member of the BWH Division of Global Health Equity and an advisor to the president of Guinea on the Ebola response. J. Daniel Kelly, MD, is the co-founder of Wellbody Alliance, which works alongside Partners In Health in Sierra Leone.