ICTPH anchors Washington University’s Trans-disciplinary Problem Solving Course in Thanjavur, India

By Zeena Johar, President – ICTPH

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis will be conducting an eight week long summer course for their Master of Public Health Program enrollees here in Thanjavur, India in collaboration with IKP Centre for Technologies in Public Health (ICTPH). The course titled – Trans-disciplinary Problem Solving (TPS): Implementing Public Health Interventions in Developing Countries, aims to train students to develop and implement household and community-level interventions that can mitigate public health challenges faced by communities in developing countries. Prof. Ramesh Raghavan, Assistant Professor, Brown School and Distinguished Faculty, ICTPH will directly mentor and guide the enrollees through the summer here in Thanjavur. The TPS students along with a multi-disciplinary team at ICTPH will develop and pilot interventions in identified high-priority primary-care disease disciplines.

With our vision towards making managed care a reality for rural Indian populations, as a research organization we specialize in primary health-care delivery systems. The four practice disciplines guiding our research are human resource, infrastructure, interventions and financing. Through structured TPS style partnerships, and our year-round internship program the intent is to establish a modular methodology allowing a global research community to guide and participate in the formative stages of our health systems design intervention.

ICTPH’s long standing partnership with the School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania has helped us think through the human resource challenge associated with primary-healthcare delivery in remote rural Indian populations. Our association with multiple other leading global public health institutions through two successive Global Internship Programs (GIP), now in its third year, has been equally rewarding.

With the vision of IKP Trust as a leading research conglomerate and innovation hub, nurturing international academic partnerships helping evolve robust, sustainable and contextual healthcare solutions is core to its mission. IKP Knowledge Park leading technology incubation through the Hyderabad based Innovation Park; the India Innovation Fund supporting pertinent technological innovations aided by the research competencies nurtured at IFPRI-ICAAP and ICTPH have been instrumental.

With ICTPH’s innovative primary healthcare delivery pilot anchored in close collaboration with SughaVazhvu, and academic opportunities such as TPS carve our way towards instituting our Centre of Excellence, advocating the way for efficient and accessible healthcare systems delivering care where it is most needed!

Download Flyer: Trans-disciplinary Problem Solving Course, Summer, 2011, India