A recent report from Senegal shows that IntraHealth’s on-the-job training method is less expensive and more effective than traditional classroom-based methods for enabling health workers to offer high-quality health care services. The Senegal Ministry of Health is now working to adopt this approach nationwide.

This on-the-job training approach, known as tutorat,  trains local doctors, nurses, and midwives to then train their peers and other less highly-skilled health workers at local health facilities. USAID/Senegal Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health/Family Planning/Malaria Project created the tutorat based on IntraHealth’s Learning for Performance system, and, to date, 711 health workers at 91 sites have been trained through this method, resulting in:

• Nurses and midwives with a better command of the information they need to deliver basic reproductive health care, including counseling on family planning and contraceptives, postabortion care, and maternity care (e.g. prenatal care, active management of the third stage of labor, and postnatal care)
• Community health workers who are better equipped to provide health education and offer basic care, and pharmacist assistants who can more efficiently manage their pharmacies
• More efficient clinic management that results in more timely patient care  
• More involvement from local health committees
• Reduced training costs. One eight-day classroom-based training session costs approximately $400 per person. Using the tutorat system, several participants can be trained together for only $500, and follow-up and review sessions are covered. Since the training is done on-the-job, clinics remain open and patients can continue to get care.