A few days ago, we concluded our quarterly maternal-perinatal statistics - a coordination meeting jointly organized by the VSMMC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Department of Pediatrics, in coordination with the Department of Health.
In the past five years of specialists reaching out to peripheral referring hospitals and institutions, we have seen an improvement in maternal and neonatal service delivery thru the reduction of total admissions and maternal deaths in the apex hospital and the improved functionality of the DOH-retained and provincial hospitals.
Looking at the website of the Department of Health, there are several health programs from A to Z. These are programs meant to improve the health-related quality of life of the general public. Listening to the discussion among DOH health officials, there seem to be a lot of challenges with implementation of these programs, including governance, monitoring, evaluation, research and policy development.
T1. Cite challenges with implementation of public health programs.
In 2018, the AMSA-SOMA (a student organization of the Cebu Institute of Medicine) organized the Public Health Forum 2018 where medical students in Cebu were exposed to the possibility that all healthcare providers whatever their chosen field, can engage in public health - whether in research and epidemiology, health financing, policy development, specialist clinical practice, or rural health development. The following year, medical students were exposed during the Public Health Forum 2019 to the concept of private-public partnership, the role of corporate sectors in health, upcoming the universal health care, macrofinance in healthcare systems, health research and development, and the role of social media in healthcare.
T2. How can healthcare providers engage in public health?
Rosemary Thackeray observed in 2012 that social media use by public health agencies is still in the early adoption stage. Pushing the idea of "click to brick" of continuing online conversations to action plans offline, we may also consider augmenting face to face collaborations for public health programs to improve connectivity between stakeholder online. Public health programs can benefit from healthcare providers engaging with patients and stakeholders on social media.
T3. Can you cite public health programs that might benefit from social media campaigns?
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