Global Health Media Project

This initiative combines the teaching power of video with the dissemination potential of emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs).

It is based on the conviction that short, engaging videos provide a simple and effective solution to help health workers gain the knowledge and basic skills known to save lives. In low-resource settings where literacy and language are obstacles to learning, Global Health Media Project integrates step-by-step visual instruction, voiced-over in the local language. For example, the project's 2011 video "The Story of Cholera" is an educational animation in which a young boy helps a health worker save his father and then guides his village in preventing cholera from spreading. There is also a newborn care series of 35 brief live action videos that cover newborn care clinical guidelines. They are shot for the small screens of phones and tablets, on location in the developing world.

Video viewing can occur via a range of devices including video-capable phones, computers, laptops, netbooks, and personal data assistants (PDAs), depending on the technology available at training facilities or to individual health workers. The Global Health Media Project website is the primary means of disseminating the videos rapidly and efficiently. All the work is available for free download under a Creative Commons license. For those users who choose offline use, there are two download options on the project website: a mobile phone version (smaller file size with lower resolution) and a laptop/tablet version (medium size and resolution). In addition, videos are actively promoted through a network of thousands of global health professionals in an effort to ensure worldwide impact. For health workers without internet connectivity, training non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and ministries of health can distribute them via a USB flash drive or a memory chip in a mobile phone.

In an effort to increase the distribution of the newborn care videos, in particular, the project is establishing partnerships. For instance, working with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)/India and the Indian Ministry of Health, HealthPhone will be distributing the videos on a memory card for mobile phones. According to organisers, this initiative has the potential to give two million health workers access to visual training tools in 15 Indian languages without the need for internet connectivity. To cite another example, South African-based Electric Book Works (EBW) Healthcare will be incorporating the videos into their eBooks, which are self-managed learning programmes for nurses and midwives that are used across southern Africa.

In April 2013, the GHMP film team launched a new video series on childbirth with a film shoot at the United Mission Hospital in Tansen, Nepal.

Health

In the words of the project's director: "In the spring of 2008, while leading a medical team in Sudan, I saw a newborn resuscitation go wrong. I intervened and the baby lived, but I realized that health workers everywhere needed this skill, and many didn’t have it. Why not? Dedicated health workers simply don’t have access to critical health care information. And it is not sophisticated knowledge that they lack, but basic practical information."

According to the Global Health Media Project, training is often unavailable to these workers and can be limited in value - lectures not understood, written material rarely read, and comprehension critically reduced by language barriers, complexity of content, and the failure to take into consideration the realities of low-resource settings.