Washington DC, 29 May 2025 (PAHO) - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) presented the Education Quality Improvement (EQI) Toolkit, a new resource designed to support the transformation of nursing and midwifery education and strengthen the health workforce in the Region.
Developed in collaboration with the PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for International Nursing (USA-241) at University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing, the toolkit offers a model for a Quality Improvement Plan that can be used by educational programs in Latin American and Caribbean countries to address universal health coverage and primary health care (PHC) within the framework of transformative education and competency-based interprofessional collaborative practice.
“Well educated nurses and midwives are crucial to the health of people in the Region of the Americas, they play a pivotal role in health promotion, disease prevention and reducing morbidity and mortality”, said Maria Shirey, Dean and Director PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for International Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing, USA.
“PAHO has been working together with the Collaborating Centers on concrete actions to transform the education of health professionals. This toolkit will be very useful to support academic institutions in improving the quality of education for nurses and midwives,” said Benjamín Puertas, Unit Chief, Human Resources for Health, PAHO.
The EQI Toolkit was presented during the regional webinar ‘Enhancing Nursing and Midwifery Education for Primary Health Care: The Education Quality Improvement Toolkit’ on May 28. More than 180 participants from 32 countries joined the event, including representatives from academic institutions, ministries of health and health services. Experts from Brazil, Chile, Jamaica, and the United States shared experiences and lessons learned of developing and applying the EQI toolkit. This initiative is part of PAHO's technical cooperation actions to strengthen nursing and midwifery education in the Region of the Americas.
EQI Toolkit
Watch the recording here
