UL Medical School Professor Joins Board of Innovative Global Health Initiative

Established by Dr Tom O'Callaghan, iheed is an Irish Philanthropic Initiative set up to bring together Irish and global expertise in health, education and technology in community health worker (CHW) training.  In developing countries this training currently targets up-skilling of approximately one million community health workers.

Relevance to real world challenges are key elements of programmes developed at the Graduate Entry Medical School at University of Limerick and in accepting this non-executive role, Professor Dunne highlighted the importance of social responsibility in medical education. "The iheed initiative has the strategic vision and support necessary to assemble a global consortium of real expertise with a history of delivery that is able to act quickly and at scale. The Foundation has the credibility to bring together industry partners, Philanthropists, Irish medical schools and NGOs who will develop the education content and training tools needed to make an impact in Africa and beyond."

The objective of the Cork-based  Foundation is to create platform-independent validated CHW-focussed diagnostic aids, training aids and communication aids suitable for use in mobile or handheld devices. These aids will be made available freely to support the roll-out of CHW strategies, working with and through Governments, to reduce training costs & time. In short, the iheed Foundation will make a difference by introducing innovative and easy to use technology solutions to those workers fighting to reduce the burden of disease that continues to kill 9 million children from simple preventable disease like gastroenteritis, malaria, & pneumonia and 360,000 mothers from complications of pregnancy and childbirth each year.