Reply To: Discussion Forum 1

[Yasmin Garcia Mendez]

Using Tele-rehabilitation as a case study, put yourself in the shoes of an implementation facilitator, and reflect upon the fit of Tele-rehabilitation using the following discussion prompts:

How does the proposed intervention fit with the priorities of your organizations?
The priority of PAHO regarding rehab and AT is to increase access and strengthen them within health system. So far, systematic assessments of the rehab situation and AT capacity have shown a lack of trained professionals to delver rehab and AT interventions. Tele-rehabilitation would fit with the priorities as it will help to reduce the gaps in access due to lack of rehab workforce.

How does it fit with community values, including the values of diverse cultural groups?
We will need to explore this more in depth as we work with different countries, different communities within countries. This will need to be explored in a case by case scenario. For example, there are some indigenous communities who cannot be photographed or video recorded due to religious and culturural beliefs. But, some larger cities welcome technology innovations.
In some countries of the Americas Region, we have observed that people change phone numbers very often and this hinder the possibility to follow up. We learned about this with a wheelchair study we implemented in El Salvador, we lost to follow up several users due to this factor.

Post your thoughts on the Discussion Board. Look at the posts of your peers. Are there similar thoughts? How do they differ?
They differ in that most of my peers have already experience implementing Tele-rehabilitation whereas we don’t have yet. And other difference is that they mostly come from implementing organizations whereas we, as PAHO do not implement but provide technical support to Ministries of Health in the assessment, planning, and monitoring and evaluating their strategic plans, and so far not in implementing.

What strategies could you use to target key stakeholders’ awareness, knowledge, attitudes, and intention to integrate the new intervention?
Dissemination strategies such as social media campaigns for clients, advertising and educational sessions in professional associations meetings, high-level forums for policy/decision makers and org managers/administrators.

What strategies could you use to target the motivation and capability of individuals and organizations to engage in implementation process strategies to integrate the new intervention?
Capacity building strategies such as providing training and technical assistance, workshops and round tables, peer networking opportunities such as professional conferences, etc.