Prof Portal Africa: innovation and collaboration

Abstract

Its own particular set of challenges is encountered in the provision of adequate health care for everybody in South Africa. There is an urgent need to train more healthcare professionals across the board, in other words to update, upskill and refresh registered personnel within the current budget and time constraints. The practice of medicine in its various disciplines is also a rapidly changing field. New protocols, changing guidelines and limited time has resulted in the present situation, in which large hospitals can only afford to offer training to 10-20% of their workforce in a budget year. Therefore, the entire staff complement does not have the same understanding or familiarity with the latest protocols and guidelines at any given time. So how can the quality of patient care be improved? It is necessary to innovate, to do it differently! There is simply not enough time or budget to ensure that there is enough staff trained in any one year.