Published October 8, 2020
The Medtronic Foundation is supporting the development of the Children’s HeartLink remote training plan through its Virtual Global Innovation Fellows Program. The six-person team from Medtronic is comprised of senior managers skilled in quality improvement, global training and education, global leadership development, clinical research, and engineering. In consultation with Children’s HeartLink staff, partners, volunteers and stakeholders, they are leading the development of a vision, strategy and outcomes-based plan for a blended in-person and remote learning model using a sustainable, phased-approach solution. The four-phase project design will be completed by October 31, followed by a pilot program in the field.
“As a long-time partner of Children’s HeartLink, we have seen how critical training programs are to expand access and improve the quality of congenital heart disease surgeries. Facing a global pandemic forced changes to how those trainings are delivered, and we are proud to support the establishment of remote learning programs throughout the COVID pandemic, ensuring continuity of services for children who need them,” says Jessica Daly, Medtronic Foundation Director of Global Health. “Leveraging the skills of Medtronic employees with Medtronic Foundation’s strategic global health partners like Children’s HeartLink is one of the ways we strive to improve the lives of communities around the world.”
“COVID-19 and the accompanying travel interruptions have heightened the urgency of transforming our program model,” says Anne Betzner, PhD, Vice President of Programs and Evaluation. “This partnership with experienced and committed fellows from Medtronic is invaluable to us as we work to become more efficient in our program delivery and strive to provide more robust training to our global partners.”
Children’s HeartLink now works in five countries: Brazil, China, India, Malaysia and Vietnam. We focus on training in-country medical providers. The training is done in partnerships with top medical volunteer teams from the US, Canada and the UK. Last year alone, 4,000 medical providers were trained and went on to serve 171,000 children. In our 51 years, we have helped more than 1.5 million children with heart disease.