The Ministry of Health has launched a new digital platform designed to support tele-mentoring and continuous capacity building for practising health workers.
The platform, the ECHO Supra Hub, will enhance the flow of information and keep health workers up to date with rapidly changing health technologies, according to Dr. Alfred Driwale, the Commissioner of Human Resources at the Ministry of Health.
Driwale notes that traditional capacity-building models are increasingly costly, and the Ministry often relies on donor support to deliver training. Yet health workers must continuously update their skills to remain relevant in practice.
The ECHO Supra Hub allows thousands of health workers to log into a session simultaneously, participate in expert-led discussions, and attend practical demonstrations without leaving their duty stations.
The Ministry has already piloted the model with 5,000 health workers across 400 health facilities countrywide. According to Dr. Charles Olaro, Director General of Health Services, the virtual sessions—usually not longer than two hours—began in October.
He says replicating the same training physically would have required a large budget and taken more than six months to complete. However, the Ministry cannot readily quantify how much the government spends on health worker capacity building. Driwale acknowledged that he did not have the figure, explaining that the heavy reliance on donor funding makes it difficult to track who is financing which trainings, in what areas, and to what extent.
At the launch event on Wednesday, health workers shared testimonies of using the platform for training on safe oxygen therapy delivery and drug resistance management for people living with HIV, among other areas.
In his remarks, United States Ambassador William Popp said the ECHO model—short for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes—was developed over 20 years ago by the University of New Mexico and has since been adopted widely for health worker training in the U.S. and elsewhere.
He described it as a sustainable approach suited to today’s dynamic disease landscape, where frequent outbreaks demand rapid, integrated responses.
Some facilities, including Mulago National Referral Hospital, are already using the platform for tele-radiology, with plans underway to expand into tele-pathology.
Although the model has so far been used predominantly for doctor training, officials say it can equally benefit nurses, midwives, allied health professionals, and emergency medical technicians, enabling seamless interaction between specialists and frontline workers.
Yet a critical challenge remains: health workers, especially those in remote facilities, will need reliable screens and internet connectivity to participate. The Ministry currently has no concrete solution for bridging this digital gap.
