February 15, 2021 — The Leadership Development Course for Public Health Nurses 2020 with the theme, “Strengthening Capacities for Universal Health Care,” held its closing ceremony on Jan. 25, 2021 for 57 public health nurses from the Department of Health and UP College of Nursing (UPCN).

First offered in 2019 by the UPCN as a professional development course, the program aimed to further enhance the competencies of public health nurses in delivering quality, safe, and affordable primary care services towards the full implementation of Universal Health Care (UHC). The 120-hour course included six competence areas based on the building blocks of health systems: health systems delivery, health financing, health regulation, health governance, health information systems, and management of human resources for health. 

The Virtual Completion Ceremony, was a culmination of an eight-week intensive training conducted with the support of the Department of Health’s Health Human Resource Development Bureau. 

Amidst the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic, the course was redesigned for online delivery. Various remote learning strategies were used to help participants achieve course and learning outcomes. These include synchronous and asynchronous activities. Asynchronous activities and course materials were curated in an online learning management system hosted by the UPCN Open Learning. Several of the asynchronous activities used video resources to simulate actual field visits that were created through the help of the Marikina City Health Office. 

Synchronous sessions gave participants an opportunity to virtually interact with the faculty, teaching assistants, resource persons, and fellow participants. Online meeting applications made group presentations and outputs possible. The participants were also given a two-week reading break in the middle of the course. They were required to submit a capstone project proposal based on a local health problem to complete the course. 

The course provided the graduates a strong foundation in public health nursing and equipped them with the necessary leadership and management skills to be key players in the UHC implementation. Its success is a testament to the innovative leadership of the College of Nursing in the professional development of public health nurses in spite of a pandemic. The course will be offered again in the second half of this year. 
 

John Joseph Posadas

Published in UP Manila Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 23