Survey participants from around the world provided the following ideas
and facts concerning initiatives/innovations:
Community initiatives:
• Community advisory groups (including hospital and community
representatives);
• Community-designed treatment programs (for example, a Ugandan
program uses pharmacies and market vendors to sell a seven-day regimen
of antibiotics to treat STDs in men; diagnosis is made based on penal discharge
and/or pain in urinating);
• Community-based care and referral;
• Hospitals ought to stimulate and partner with churches concerning
health promotion;
• Community members should sit on hospital boards;
• A system in which the community raises "food" to subsidize operational
costs could be created;
• The Christian community could provide tithes/time/resources
towards health projects;
• The community could pay the care-providing hospital based on
the number of people it keeps healthy;
• In Nepal, a clinic was transferred to the community over 18
months of building local capacity;
• In Tanzania, a community assesses a "tax" for health insurance
needs;
• In Zambia, local believers built their own hospital in partnership
with the mission, and neighborhood committees set local budgets/priorities
for health care;
• In Brazil, Evangelical churches formed the "Evangelical Beneficent
Society" to build and operate an Evangelical hospital;
• In the Dominican Republic, a laser eye surgery unit was set
up and a "for the poor only" health center was subsidized.
The
community should pay
the hospital based on the
number
of people it keeps healthy.
Training initiatives:
• Innovative curriculum development; problem-based learning (Nepal);
• Training medical students; adapted with contextualized approach
(Congo);
• Establishing private nursing schools in cooperation with governments;
• Training and facilitating not just in the medical arena, but
also training in drip irrigation, Bible, etc.;
• Investing in the lives of individuals/nationals (e.g., urology
training in Haiti);
• Problem-based learning at Zamboanga Medical School;
• Self-care training at Lalgad Hospital (problem-based learning);
• Mentoring young dentists (Bahrain);
• Privatization of training as a Christian institution and functioning
with local funds;
• Upgrading nurses via satellite programs;
• Implementing electronic distance learning using the Internet.
We should
devote 30% of our time
to assessing and planning
the future.
Innovations that change the way
things are done:
• Calling and vision concerning long-term commitment to people
and working with the community;
• Developing the concept of calling and vision of national missionaries
(including medical missionaries);
• Not being so busy doing things that training is neglected;
• Limited internal production of pharmaceuticals;
• Devoting 30% of time to assessing and planning the future;
• Healing for the elderly (reversing the effects of aging);
• Staff exposure to village/city needs (routinely);
• Determining the mission of the hospital through community diagnosis;
• Developing the centrality of spirituality in health promotion
and disease prevention;
• Establishing and implementing a process for community participation
in decision-making.
