Digital programs and platforms upskill health sector in a big way: Sandeep Makkar, MD, J&J Medical India

Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld spoke to Sandeep Makkar, MD, J&J Medical India, to share his thoughts on the need for creative, digital programmes for healthcare providers during the Covid lockdown.

Covid-19:Learnings
What we have learned from Covid-19 as a medical device industry, and health sector in general is that we have unleashed the digital educational programs and platforms for upskilling health sector.

How?
Number 1: We have increased the reach and frequency of quality surgical educational programs for safe and effective use of medical devices in this case. To reach even healthcare practitioners in rural India and remote towns, where we know 40% of the practitioners are in those places. Over the last 8 to 12 weeks, we have engaged almost 20,000 healthcare practitioners in both metro cities as well as smaller towns.



Number 2: The creative programs compliment face-to-face formats that medical professionals are so used to.

How?
Because they bring together a collective and a diverse experience. And in this case, at Johnson & Johnson Institute, we had years of collective experience or 300 faculties to develop and then engage the 20,000 healthcare practitioners that were trained over the last few weeks. And all, by making the format very fun engaging, and interactive through polling and other means.

These sessions were recorded so that learners could go back and passively reflect, learn and then come back and re-engage. Moreover, these programs and this platform provides efficiency, it cuts down on the travel time for both the learner as well as teacher by almost 75%. It also saves the industry training cost by over 80%. All this money saved can be reinvested by the industry in developing innovation and other value-added programs. The time saved by the learners and the teachers can be reinvested in what matters most, the patients.

Are these platforms here to stay?
My answer is yes.