Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The National Chamber of Innovative Healthcare of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the KIHASA Institute (Republic of Korea) discussed the international experience in improving the education and qualifications of nurses.

This issue was not accidentally raised during an online conference held on 11 September with the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Health of Uzbekistan, directors of a number of medical educational institutions from different regions of the country specializing in the education of nursing staff or, as they say, "nursing education".

In many countries of the world, including the Republic of Korea, nurses have not only specialized secondary education, but also strive to get higher, completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees. This allowed the nursing staff to become independent medical workers, and not just physician assistants, as is generally practiced in our country.

At the same time, increasing the professional competence of nurses also relieves the doctors themselves, who entrust such specialists with a number of functions that they otherwise have to perform themselves.

This was discussed in a presentation on the modern system of nursing education in the Republic of Korea, which was demonstrated to the participants of the online forum by the representative of the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA) Seoul Ki Choi.

The cooperation between the National Chamber and KIHASA began with a meeting with the president of this reputable research institution Choi Hyung Shik in November 2019. The parties reached an agreement on the presentation by the Korean side of recommendations to improve the education of nurses. Despite the changes that followed the pandemic, this project was completed and its results are presented at this conference.

KIHASA representatives proposed short-term, medium-term and long-term plans for reforming nursing education in our country. The main emphasis in these transformations is made on a radical revision of the status of nurses. The way to this is through changing curricula and programs, introducing educational standards, taking into account the best international experience, those competencies that are given to the institute of the same nurses in many countries. At the same time, it is important to create a system of incentives for specialists in this category to strive to obtain higher education in their direction. Only then, having specialists of the highest category in the direction of "nursing staff", it will be possible to gradually increase the level of professional competencies of all who fall under this definition.

The conference also presented the efforts that are being made in Uzbekistan to develop "nursing education". Leading specialist of the Main Directorate of Science and Education of the Ministry of Health Lutfi Yusupova, director of the Republican Center for Advanced Training and Specialization of Secondary Medical Workers Lola Musajanova spoke about this. They also expressed gratitude to the Korean specialists for their detailed analysis and practical recommendations aimed at cardinal changes in the status of nurses.

During the conference, Deputy Chairman of the National Chamber of Innovative Healthcare Abdunumon Sidikov emphasized that the main thing is that such changes will entail a new quality of services for patients, which is the main task of the entire healthcare system of Uzbekistan.

Taking into account the relevance of the issue discussed and the research experience of the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs, the parties agreed to continue joint work with the aim of preparing recommendations for a phased reform of the nursing staff training system, a significant increase in the competencies, status and authority of this category of healthcare professionals in the country. Moreover, the successful international experience in this direction, on the example of the same Korea, has already shown the effectiveness of this path.