PHA-Exchange> Teaching-Aids At Low Cost (TALC) survey on use of CD-ROMs

[Claudio]

From: "Vern Weitzel" <vern.weitzel at undp.org>

 TALC's survey on use of CD-ROMs
>
> ...."There is little if any evidence that the majority of health
> professionals, especially those working in primary health care, are any
> better informed than they were 10 years ago". (Godlee F. 2004).
>
> This was the conclusion of an eminent group. Teaching-Aids At Low Cost
> (TALC) considers that new approaches are needed and suggests that one
> may well be the free CD which TALC produces on wide variety of health
> related subjects may be such an approach.
>
> The first was sent out in 2001 and over the last 2 years '03 and '04 the
> address list of those requesting the CDs has grown at an average of 25 /
> week, and currently is over 3,000. The circulation must equal and be
> greater than that of almost any journal. The potential for this approach
> has been brought home by the response to a 1,000 questionnaires sent out
> in early '03, TALC received over a 13% response.
>
> >From this it appears that most of the recipients used it both at home and
> work and many for study, the majority of their PCs and programmes are
> post 1995.
>
> More than 80% had access to a printer and of those with this access over
> 90% had printed off material for themselves, colleagues or students.
>
> Many had problems with Internet connections which were also expensive in
> terms of their salary - the land line and server costing over
> 20 USDollars a month. The majority seemed to use the Internet largely
> for sending e-mails.
>
> TALC has met generosity in the provision of material. Three Royal
> colleges, UNICEF, WHO the BMJ, Lancet, many NGOs have all provided
> material.
>
> Perhaps the most important responses were on the use made of the CD and
> what the recipients thought of it, the following have been taken as
> examples from more than a hundred comments:
>
> A religious Sister Doctor from the Philippines made a concise summary of
> what TALC intended with the CDs:   . . . the CD is innovative and good
> especially for health professionals in developing countries where
> medical books and periodicals are hard to acquire.  It is up-to-date and
> informative, very useful to me are the Cochrane abstracts. . .
>
> Public health nurse tutor. . .CDs one of the most useful reference
> materials, keep a library of TALC CDs.
>
> Malawian librarian. . CDs are very useful to teaching staff nursing
> students students and other staff as they are mainly used in the Nursing
> college. . .
>
> Chinese-Fijian doctor training students. . . .CDs excellent . . . .more
> on child health issues.
>
> Eritrean doctor. . CD really helpful for our programme. . . trauma and
> its management outside hospital.
>
> Prof. David. C.Morley.  MD. CBE.
>
> [HIF-net profile: David Morley is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of
> Child Health, Tropical Child Health Unit. He has been involved with
> Teaching Aids at Low Cost (TALC) and Child-to-Child for many years. His
particular present concern is in creating a reading culture among health
> workers and assisting numeracy by involving family and community in
> measurement of their children. David at morleydc.demon.co.uk]
>
> HIF-net: working together to improve access to reliable information for
healthcare providers in developing and transitional countries. Send list
messages to <hif-net at dgroups.org>. To join the
> list, send an email to <hif-net at dgroups.org> with name, organization,
country, and brief description  of professional interests. Archive at:
http://www.dgroups.org/groups/HIF-net/