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Published in: 09/29/2017

EPSJV supports study about technicians in Central America

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Julia Neves (EPSJV)

To describe the features of the professional education of healthcare technicians with and without college degrees through the regulatory frameworks of the professional practice in Central America and the Caribbean: this is the goal of the mapping organized by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) about the regulatory framework of the training of healthcare technicians in seven Central American countries: Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. The work has the support of Joaquim Venâncio Polytechnic Health School (EPSJV/Fiocruz, from Portuguese Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio), which is a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for the Education of Healthcare Technicians and the seat of the Executive Department of the International Healthcare Technicians Education Network (RETS, in the Portuguese acronym).

Liu Leal, an international consultant for PAHO/WHO, explains that the motivation for the mapping came from a lack of definition about who are and how is the training for those who work as healthcare technicians. ‘We noticed that the studies on healthcare technicians are not conducted in a structured manner in most Central American countries. We expect to identify these workers so that the study may contribute both to more thorough studies and for the development of strategies regarding exchange relationships in regional training processes’, explained Liu, who highlighted that the initiative has as an obstacle the difficulty in understanding how each country defines what is a “healthcare technician” and whether they work for the public or private sectors. ‘Moreover, it is a study performed remotely that has a short length’, she added.

Collective sense

The exploratory research will be divided into two stages which will last for a total of three months, from September to November. The first stage focuses on developing the methodology, which is then followed by the characterization of the training system for public and private sector healthcare technicians in Central America, identifying the existing normative frameworks and regulatory processes in the training and education, at a university or elsewhere, regarding the opening of institutions and technical careers. In order to do that, we will identify a focal point in the Human Resources Management of each country’s Ministry of Health in order to assess the work with the different sectors involved.

The second stage involves taking part in the meetings of the Technical Commission for the Development of Human Resources in Healthcare of the Council of Health Ministries of Central America and the Dominican Republic (COMISCA, from Spanish Consejo de ministros de Salud de Centroamérica y República Dominicana) during the second semester of 2017, with the goal of presenting the improvements and agree on follow-up strategies for the countries of this sub-region. Lastly, the second stage involves the development of the methodological proposal for the continuity of an analytical stage that enables the characterization of the state of the training and labor market insertion for healthcare technicians.

The current EPSJV International Cooperation Coordinator, Ingrid D’Avilla, explains that, as a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center and Executive Department for the RETS and its sub-networks (RETS-Unasul and RETS-CPLP), EPSJV also has the mission of providing the definition of the policies for professional healthcare training and for scientific initiation in healthcare. According to her, the PAHO/WHO request for theoretical and methodological support in the mapping fulfills EPSJV’s expectations of contributing ever more to the production of knowledge on the reality of the training offered to the technicians in the region. ‘The production of knowledge is crucial to put an end to the invisibility that has historically marked the training and work of the technicians. We cooperate because we are recognized internationally as a landmark institution regarding this topic, but also because we want to expand the meanings of our institutional mission,’ she stated.

RETS Central America reactivated

In the opinion of Geandro Pinheiro, an EPSJV researcher who has also coordinated the International Cooperation Department, the mapping that is being developed will serve as the foundation for the strengthening of the RETS in Central America, with the creation of a sub-network for the region. ‘The RETS, whose mission is to bring together institutions and organizations that are involved with the training and qualification of healthcare technicians for countries in the Americas, lusophone Africa and Portugal, was created in 1996. At that time, Costa Rica School of Public Health (from Spanish Escuela de Salud Pública de Costa Rica) took over the Network’s Executive Department until 2001, when the RETS was temporarily deactivated’, stated Geandro. He recalls that at that moment many Central American institutions were active members of the network.

‘In September 2005, EPSJV took over the Executive Department, and the Network was reactivated. Unfortunately, the time, the distance and the organization spaces eventually imposed barriers that lead to the gradual separation of the countries in this region,’ regretted Geandro.

In 2014, the University of Costa Rica’s (UCR, from Spanish Universidad de Costa Rica)  School of Health Technologies (ETS, from Spanish  Escuela de Tecnologías en Salud), the first institution in charge of the RETS Executive Department, requested the support of EPSJV in a project to reactivate the Network in Central America and in the Caribbean. In 2016, UCR requested the support of PAHO/WHO in the development of a workshop for the Reactivation of the Central American and Caribbean Chapter of the RETS along with EPSJV, during the 3rd International Technology and Health Convention, held in Cuba in March 2017. During the event, a work plan was developed, and it pointed to the need to expand a previous and more simplified mapping performed by UCR.

The idea is that the study results will be presented by Liu and Marcela Pronko, an EPSJV professor and researcher who will be in charge of the support during a COMISCA meeting in November 2017. ‘We view this space for the meeting of health ministers as vital and strategic for the foundation of RETS Central America, and we work with the perspective of developing its foundational framework by the beginning of 2018,’ announced Geandro.