Empower 4,000 Health Workers around the Globe

Thank you for your support for HVO’s work of empowering health care providers across the globe. At Health Volunteers Overseas, our mission is to build the capacity of health workers and strengthen health care systems. A crucial component is partnership. HVO facilitates partnerships between institutions, local providers, volunteers, and sponsor organizations, connecting people with one another and with the resources necessary to bring education and training to health workers in low- and middle-income countries. Your support makes these partnerships possible.

HVO volunteer and pediatrics committee member Cynthia Howard, MD, MPH, FAAP recently commented, “I think developing professional relationships with international colleagues – teaching together and exchanging ideas, provides not only personal satisfaction, but the opportunity to build pediatric capacity together. The greatest impact for all of us is the professional network we have developed together.”

Dr. Howard certainly speaks from experience, as she has volunteered in Uganda on more than a dozen assignments. The network of HVO volunteers and Ugandan colleagues and partners have worked together on a number of advancements in child health, including neonatology education; establishment of an Adolescent Clinic; implementation of a screen for G6PD deficiency; and the development of a diabetes clinic.

Bringing together health care professionals to work side-by-side and share their knowledge and skills is what builds and strengthens health systems around the world. The impact of an individual health worker is magnified when they operate as part of a team dedicated to delivering quality health care. Likewise, HVO’s organizational impact is magnified through partnerships.

We are pleased that additional partnerships have developed this year. In March, another nursing education project site in Vietnam opened, and three new projects in Peru will start in May, in the fields of orthopaedics, physical therapy, and anesthesia.

Thank you for your support in empowering health care providers; your support is making a difference in global health care!

Thank you very much for your contributions to HVO’s health worker empowerment project.  Last year, Health Volunteers Overseas completed 438 assignments in resource-scarce countries. These assignments ranged in length from 1 week to several months, and every assignment was staffed by a licensed health care professional who addressed the educational and training needs that had been identified by the host institution. Every volunteer worked with multiple colleagues while on site and, thanks to the support of donors like you, thousands of health workers received training in 2017.

The education and training that HVO volunteers provide is determined by our host institute (hospitals, medical schools, universities, etc.). Volunteers work in hospitals, providing didactic and clinical teaching, in-service training, and training during bedside rounds. They work in universities training health care faculty members and, in medical schools, they provide continuing education for faculty and training for medical students and residents, which leads to more and better care in resource-scarce countries.

Last year, a volunteer shared a story of working with Bhutan’s National Referral Hospital oncology nursing team to implement a standard "mini assessment," encouraging nurses working in the hospital’s oncology department to cover basic questions with patients during every visit. After attending the HVO volunteer’s training session on the importance of conducting these standard assessments, a Bhutanese nurse began implementing the new protocol when working with her cancer patients. While conducting the mini assessment with one of her patients prior to administering chemotherapy, the nurse learned that her patient had recently developed a cough.

Noting the new symptom, the nurse consulted with the patient's oncologist, learning that the cough could be indicative of a complication of the patient's chemotherapy medication. The team determined the medication was not safe for the patient, and by following the standard assessment procedure, the nurse prevented dangerous complications for her patient.

Your support makes this life-saving work possible and enables HVO to grow. In the last quarter of 2017 alone, three new projects were launched – a nursing education project that focuses on neonatal intensive care at a hospital in Laos, a physical therapy project in Vietnam to enhance a new bachelor’s degree program at a university in Danang, and an oral health project at a hospital in Peru which works to improve oral and maxillofacial surgery care and will develop a teaching program for new residents.

HVO currently has 95 projects in 29 countries, providing health care education and training in the areas of anesthesia and nurse anesthesia, dermatology, hematology, internal medicine, nursing education, obstetrics/gynecology, oncology, oral health, orthopaedics, pediatrics, physical therapy, wound management, emergency medicine, mental health, and pharmacy.

Your support helps make all of this possible. Thank you for contributing to improved global health care!