When the Health Department and the National Health Mission launched Hridyam in 2017, the State’s initiative for the early diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart diseases (CHD) in newborns and infants, one of the primary challenges was the lack of experienced paediatric cardiologists or even cardiologists who could give a confirmatory diagnosis of CHD in an infant in a critical condition.
In an effort at capacity building, for the first time, the Health Department has now opted for e-learning solutions and it is proving to be a huge hit amongst all health-care providers.
“There are just a handful of paediatric cardiologists and fewer still in the government sector. Mostly we depended on cardiologists for a diagnosis. But a child is not a miniature adult and we found later that in many cases, there are crucial diagnostic differences,” says M. Sreehari, State Nodal Officer (Child Health), who has been coordinating Hridyam.
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Critical cases
Last year, at a stakeholders’ meeting, senior paediatric cardiologists pointed out that government hospitals had to be equipped to stabilise and maintain suspected CHD cases brought in a critical condition, till it was possible to transfer the infant to other private sector hospitals.
Though this has been followed up with a series of continuing medical education programmes, it is evident that basic knowledge in paediatric cardiology is crucial for all doctors and nurses in hospitals with newborn ICUs.
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Online sessions
Children’s Heart Links (CHL), an NGO partner of Hridyam, came up with the idea of e-learning solutions.
Through CHL, the Health Department has now tied up with Teleradiology Solutions, a globally accredited company, to facilitate online sessions in paediatric cardiology.
“The co-founder of the company, Sunita Maheshwari, a paediatric cardiologist trained abroad, is providing tele radiology solutions to all district hospitals in Tripura as well as online classes for the National Board for DNB courses in 12 institutions in the country.
With the help of CHL and Teleradiology Solutions, 30 paediatric cardiologists from across the country have joined our e-learning initiative. We have planned 52 one-hour weekly classes on different topics.” says Dr. Sreehari.
Some seven classes have already been conducted. From across 21 hospitals in Kerala over 150 paediatricians from medical colleges and doctors and staff nurses in district hospitals with sick newborn care units are attending the live online classes and interactive sessions.
Another 20 hospitals, including private medical colleges, have now sought permission to take part, health officials say.
To reinforce the learning, a mobile app has also been developed.
Echo test
Efforts are now on to integrate point-of-care echocardiography test into Hridyam, by providing hands-on training to paediatricians in government hospitals.