| Building a Sustainable Health Workforce - Strengthening Postgraduate Medical Education through Global Health Partnerships |
King’s Global Health Partnerships (KGHP) / King’s College London |
Monday 22nd September 2025 |
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM GMT |
Africa faces a critical shortage of specialist health workers, exacerbated by significant outward migration. There is much variation between countries: some with well-established Postgraduate Medical Education (PGME) and others less so. This workshop provides an opportunity for mutual learning, sharing, and solution development. Grounded in KGHP's practical experience across multiple African countries (Gambia, DRC, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Somaliland), the session will explore how equitable international partnerships can be powerful catalysts for developing sustainable, locally owned PGME systems and helping to facilitate regional collaboration. |
| Advancing Medicine and Vaccine Safety Surveillance in Africa: Insights from the Saving Lives and Livelihoods Pharmacovigilance Program |
Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), Makerere University |
Monday 22nd September 2025 |
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM GMT |
The Saving Lives and Livelihoods Pharmacovigilance (SLL-PV) program, led by the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) in partnership with AFREhealth, has been instrumental in enhancing pharmacovigilance (PV) systems across 14 African Union member states. By supporting capacity development in pharmacovigilance reporting, training pharmacovigilance focal personnel and healthcare workers, public engagement and knowledge exchange, the program fosters resilient national PV systems and stronger regional collaboration. This side event will showcase progress, reflect on lessons learned, and chart a path forward for sustainable pharmacovigilance capacity in Africa. |
| The Role of Academic Institutions in Building Resilient Health Systems in Africa through Research, Innovation, and Technical Support |
Infectious Diseases Institute, Global Health Security Department |
Monday 22nd September 2025 |
2:30 PM – 4:00 PM GMT |
Academic institutions play a key role in strengthening health systems through research, innovation, and sustained technical assistance. As a leading regional research and implementation science institution, the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) at Makerere University has contributed to advancing Africa’s pandemic preparedness, disease surveillance, and resilient health system development. This workshop will highlight IDI's strategic contributions and foster cross-learning around interprofessional collaboration, a key theme of the AFREhealth Symposium. The session will showcase academic-led models for improving vaccine uptake, such as school-based campaigns, peer-led community engagement, and the use of local champions which have been instrumental in enhancing immunization coverage. We will also discuss innovations in electronic integrated disease surveillance systems that enable timely outbreak detection and response. Drawing from IDI’s field experience, the event will highlight the application of a One Health approach in epidemic management, the role of national and sub-national public health institutions, and how academic partnerships strengthen laboratory systems and workforce capacity. The workshop will explore Africa-centric solutions, including support for new vaccine introductions (e.g., Ebola and yellow fever) and digital tools for risk communication. |
| Strengthening the Health Workforce: How ECHO is Building Sustainable Health Workforce to Meet Africa’s Health Priorities |
ECHO Africa |
Tuesday 23rd September 2025 |
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM GMT |
The ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) model is a proven, low-cost virtual learning platform that uses case-based mentorship and knowledge sharing to train health professionals—especially in remote and underserved areas—at scale. This workshop will showcase how the ECHO model can support the development of a sustainable health workforce in Africa through targeted, cost-effective virtual education and mentorship. Using case examples from current ECHO programs led by academic partners on antimicrobial stewardship for healthcare providers (TEACH AMS), HIV laboratory (ECHO Labo Bonnes Pratiques) and gender equity (ECHO Gender Equity and Leadership), the workshop will highlight practical applications and strategies for scaling this model to meet regional health workforce needs. |
| Enhancing Communication and Presentation Skills for Health Professions Educators: A Needs-Based, Interactive Workshop |
MeduCate Global, LLC |
Tuesday 23rd September 2025 |
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM GMT |
This workshop focuses on helping participants improve their communication and presentation skills through a highly interactive, learner-centered approach. It will include a live, interactive needs assessment to identify participant priorities and challenges related to communication and presentation. Based on this input, the facilitator will guide a dynamic session incorporating structured mini-lessons on presentation fundamentals, interactive activities that utilize improv and storytelling, role-playing for challenging educational conversations, and peer coaching to refine skills. The session is learner-centered, experiential, and responsive to in-room needs. It integrates humor, real-world examples, and best practices from learning science and communication theory. Cultural sensitivity and contextual adaptability will be embedded throughout. Participants will gain a practical toolkit and leave with greater confidence and new peer connections to support ongoing development. |
| Reflections and Next Steps: Reimagining Health Professions Education for Regional Impact and Beyond |
Northwestern University, Stellenbosch University, FAIMER, African Center for Global Health and Social Transformation |
Wednesday 24th September 2025 |
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM GMT |
As we navigate the challenges of public health, understanding and strengthening the systems that train health professionals is critical. Units of Health Professions Education (HPE) play an important role in promoting high-quality health sciences education worldwide. However, little information on these HPE units in Eastern, Southern, and Western Africa (ESWA) has been published, and this inhibits advances in workforce capacity, service delivery, and sustainability of education in the continent. The Scoping Current Opportunities for Health Professions Education (SCOHPE) study provides unique insights into the current landscape, barriers, and facilitators shaping HPE across ESWA. This interactive workshop will bring together faculty, leaders, and stakeholders to reflect on the study’s findings and, more importantly, to connect, collaborate, and chart actionable next steps. The session will prioritize participant interaction through small-group breakouts, structured discussion, and collaborative priority-setting. |
| From Learning to Action - Assessing the Impact of Healthcare Continuing Education Courses |
FMSQ, University of Botswana, Medical College of Wisconsin, SACME |
Wednesday 24th September 2025 |
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM GMT |
Effective Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses for healthcare professionals are essential to advancing the Quintuple Aim of healthcare: enhancing the patient experience, improving population health, reducing costs, supporting care team well-being, and promoting health equity. To demonstrate the value and relevance of these educational interventions, program evaluation is crucial. It provides evidence of effectiveness, informs continuous improvement, and ensures that learning activities meaningfully enhance professional competence and ultimately contribute to better patient outcomes. However, assessing these outcomes can be challenging, as many changes occur in clinical practice. This workshop will introduce you to CPD-REACTION, a reliable and validated tool designed to measure healthcare professionals’ behavioral intentions following an educational intervention. Grounded in Godin’s integrated theoretical framework, this 12-item instrument can be easily integrated into your evaluation strategy to assess behavioral intention and the socio-cognitive factors that influence it. Through real-world case studies, you’ll explore how to implement this instrument and analyze the results effectively. By the end of the session, you will be equipped to design a tailored program evaluation plan to better capture and understand the impact of your educational initiatives. |
| Strategies for Developing Open Education Resources (OER) with Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Health Professions Education |
ScholarRx and AFREhealth |
Wednesday 24th September 2025 |
2:30 PM – 4:00 PM GMT |
Historically, high-quality health professions education has been expensive to develop and limited to major commercial or academic publishers. New digital platforms have accelerated the development of open education resources (OER) which have evolved to address critical cost and accessibility issues in education globally, including the Global South. Emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools offer unprecedented opportunities to streamline content creation, personalize learning, and automate resource curation, further expanding equitable access to quality educational materials. This hands-on, interactive workshop will provide participants with an introductory overview of OER with AI. Participants will be able to explore best practices for leveraging OER in existing curricular development processes and learn more about the AFREhealth-ScholarRx partnership to develop accessible OER for the African continent. A variety of free, low-cost, and AI-enabled tools including ScholarRx for the development, management, and sharing of OER will be discussed and demonstrated. In small-group breakouts, participants will have an opportunity to experiment with selected tools to develop OER, exploring how AI can be used for content generation, translation, or personalized learning pathways. Finally, potential pitfalls—such as quality, critical appraisal, and copyright issues—will be addressed, with a focus on responsible use of AI tools in the creation and dissemination of educational resources. |