The Highlands Hope Nurse-Counselors Network (HHNCN) identified computer skills as a critically important focus for professional training and skills upgrading.

Working with IT experts at Consolata Hospital Ikonda, the Chair of HHNCN, Betty Liduke, and the Secretary, Tasilo Ndamu, developed an introductory course that will run for three months for approximately a dozen nurse-counselors. Course instruction began on March 1.

The nurse-counselors are each paying a registration fee with further financial support from the Dar es Salaam accounting firm Pima Associates, St. George's Elementary School in Montreal, McGill Nurses for Highlands Hope and Canadian Friends of Highlands Hope.

The Highlands Hope CTCs are facing growing pressures from the numbers of patients seeking their services. They are among the very few rural HIV clinics in Tanzania that are providing dependable, effective AIDS care including anti-retrovirals and rigorous follow-up. They must use every technology available to maximize efficiency, including IT systems.

The Highlands Hope network will be looking at ways to extend the use of computerized medical records for better patient care and enhanced efficiency over the next year as a priority issue.

March 3, 2007.