Table 1.
Categories of the COVID-19 pandemic response where trainees applied skills gained through the Structured Operational Research and Training InitiaTive (SORT IT, 2009–2019). Illustrative quotes are provided for each category (N-307).
| Categories of the COVID-19 Response | Applying SORT IT Skills n (%) |
Illustrative Quotes from Trainees around the Globe |
|---|---|---|
| Situation analysis | 168 (55) | I was able to conduct a situation analysis on the Taftan border of Baluchistan and establish measures for screening, management and reporting of COVID-19—PakistanI conducted a situational analysis in preparedness of health facilities to respond to COVID-19. I looked at availability of IPC equipment/supplies, staff capacity in case identification and management, and IPC practices to prevention spread—Uganda |
| Epidemic surveillance | 126 (41) | I helped introduce a mobile health surveillance tool (TeCHO+) that is being used by community health workers to screen over 30 million people for COVID-19 in Gujarat—IndiaI was able to adapt the District Health Information System (DHIS2) to set up a surveillance and tracking system in my country—Bhutan |
| Emergency preparedness and response | 118 (38) | I am part of the rapid investigation team of MoH/WHO for outbreak investigation, emergency preparedness and response for Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar—BangladeshThe SORT IT knowledge helped me develop a mixed method study on health system preparedness to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also helped my team to have an analysis plan to improve understanding of the findings by policy makers—Guinea |
| Infection, prevention and control (IPC) including health worker safety | 145 (47) | The knowledge I acquired from the SORT IT training on Infection, Prevention and Control is being applied to the COVID-19 response—ZambiaI was able to conduct a survey on the status of preparedness of health care workers for COVID-19—Kazakhstan |
| Clinical management (screening, diagnosis and clinical care) | 82 (27) | I am leading a team in 3 districts Hospitals and 42 health centers on screening, protocol development and trainings—RwandaI reviewed literature, analyzed data from quarantine centers and appraised the Ministry of Health and the Prime Minister’s office on decisions regarding duration of quarantine and follow up thereafter—Bhutan |
| Data generation analysis and reporting | 173(56) | I was able to do data analysis of all surveillance reports received from the 35 facilities in a sub-county—KenyaI am developing a mobile reporting application for suspected COVID-19 patients. The code-books learnt from SORT IT are very useful for the software development—Myanmar |
| Operational or clinical research | 79 (26) | My team are helping projects in different parts of the world to develop “simple” tools to efficiently capture relevant COVID-19 data to be used for operational research—Médecins Sans Frontierès—BelgiumAs a research analyst for homeless shelters, the data analysis and writing skills I learnt, and the application of operational research principles are critical for my current work—Canada |
| Mitigating COVID-19 effect on other diseases (TB, HIV/AIDS, NCDs) | 83 (27) | I was able to use routine programme data to highlight significant declines in uptake of routine antenatal services and specific measures are being taken to address this in the community and at health facilities—Sierra LeoneI was able to instruct health staff in the endocrine and diabetic clinics on Infection, Prevention and Control measures and re-arranged scheduling to reduce health worker exposure to COVID-19—Sri Lanka |
| Others | 23 (8) | I am better at thinking more logically which is useful in all that I do—United Kingdom I was able to organize courses, seminars and meetings with health authorities and to prepare flow charts for patient care—Honduras |
TB: Tuberculosis; HIV/AIDS: Human Immune Deficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; NCDS: Non-Communicable Diseases. Many participants reported using several skills, and hence numbers and percentages are more than 488 and 100% respectively.