Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre, AstraZeneca launch skill program for nurses

India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre is a collaboration between the Swedish Trade Commissioner’s Office, AIIMS New Delhi and AIIMS Jodhpur. The training will equip nurses with world-class practical know-how required in managing diabetes. In the first batch, 30 nurses from AIIIMS Jodhpur will be trained for two days.

The program aims to upskill 5,000 nurses across the country in the next one year by converting the current modules into e-learning. It also aims to expand the current curriculum to other non- communicable diseases (NCD) areas including hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and oncology.

The modules of this program are carefully designed to enable nurses to deliver specialized care, essential support services and standardized counselling for patients living with these high incidence non-communicable diseases in India. “Nurses hold transformative power in tackling any disease. The primary idea behind this initiative is to create a framework that can enhance primary, secondary and tertiary care in India. The program we are launching deeply focuses on enriching our nurses with hands-on knowledge and specific skills required to practice and promote up-to-date patient centric care,” said Cecilia Oskarsson, trade commissioner of Sweden to India

Dr. Sanjeev Misra, director, AIIMS Jodhpur said, “Nurses are a vital layer of any healthcare ecosystem that is instrumental in achieving the health and development goals of a country. As a part of India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre, we are proud to have developed a scalable training programme that would help nurses to not only deliver safe essential health services but also influence and educate patients towards understanding and managing a non-communicable disease”.

The training program is targeted to empower nurses to better recognize the risk factors, causes, pathophysiology, screening methods, diagnostic tests and management of diabetes mellitus, hypertension and other NCDs. They will also be able to advice patients and the community on the importance of early and regular screening and adoption of healthy lifestyle. Another key outcome expected is to help people overcome myths and barriers and improve the rate of timely action for confirmatory diagnosis and appropriate treatment.

“Capacitating and upskilling nurses can prove to be a boon in ensuring the delivery of affordable, standardised and safe essential health care services. Through this initiative, we continue our commitment to address the growing burden of NCDs by setting up solution oriented centres of excellence that could focus upon upskilling, impactful solutions and scalable operations,” said Dr. Anil Kukreja, VP Medical Affairs, AstraZeneca India