WHO Kobe Centre Offered the Leadership Training Course for Urban Emergencies
WHO Kobe Centre pilot tested its newly developed training course for city health emergency managers last 24 February at the Kobe City Emergency Operations Centre. There were 20 participants from Hyogo Prefecture who attended the training course entitled: City Leadership in Health Innovations and Technologies in Emergencies otherwise known as City LHITE.
The course aims to provide health and health related professionals working in cities/urban areas involved in emergencies and disasters with knowledge and understanding of the concepts, principles and strategies of urban health emergency management and the utilization of innovations and technologies in disaster operations. The course is composed of three modules covering: health emergency management principles, leadership in health emergencies and innovations/technologies in emergencies. The course is heavy on group work to ensure a participatory approach to learning and to ensure sharing of actual field experiences of the trainees. A training package was provided to the participants which contains technical input on the various topics.
Experts from national and prefectural agencies provided inputs on the latest approaches to health emergencies in Japan like the Emergency Medical Information System (EMIS), Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) training and the public health centres leadership course . They provided the valuable case studies on experiences from recent emergencies in Japan that the participants could use to deepen their learning from the new training course.
The City LHITE training was developed through a rigorous needs assessment and review of existing training courses in health emergencies. There is no known training course on leadership for urban health emergencies and also in the area of innovations and technologies. In recent major emergencies, there has been a greater realization of utilizing technologies and innovations to deliver faster and more effective health response. The development of the training course was supported by the Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute (HEM21) and in collaboration with the Disaster Reduction and human Renovations Institution (DRI), Hyogo Emergency Medical Centre, and the the Department of Global Health, Medicine and Welfare of the Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.