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History
The last decades have seen a tremendous expansion and growth of sophistication in curative health care. Consequently, most financial and human resource investments have been concentrated on the development of hospital care. Although in many countries this policy has significantly expanded the array of health care services, it has frequently tended to reduce access to the more widespread need for primary care. Furthermore, it has become clear that common health problems cannot be solved by medical human resources alone, but that joint efforts with communities and experts from other disciplines are required. For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) issued a declaration in 1978 that re-emphasized the need for health care at the primary level. This 'Alma Ata' declaration provided the foundation for the 'Health for All' strategy, subsequently developed by WHO.
This development made it clear that a shift in emphasis from hospital-based curative care towards community-oriented preventive and primary health care would also be necessary in the education of health professionals. With support of the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization, representatives of ten health professions educational institutions met in Kingston, Jamaica in 1979. They founded the 'Network of Community-Oriented Educational Institutions for Health Sciences'. Just before the turn of the century (1999), the organisation was renamed 'The Network: Community Partnerships for Health through Innovative Education, Service, and Research'. This name reflected the broader role health science institutions can play, through all three of their missions, in improving community health.
In May 1991 an article about the foundation of The Network of Community-Oriented Educational Institutions for Health Sciences (now The Network: Towards Unity for Health) and its goals and objectives was published in Academic Medicine (1991, 5, 259 - 263). The article, written by Henk G. Schmidt, Victor Neufeld, Zohair Nooman and Toye Ogunbode can be downloaded below.
In 2001 The Network merged with the European Network for the Development of Multi-Professional Education in Health Sciences (EMPE) and in 2002 the Network amalgamated with WHO's 'Towards Unity For Health' (TUFH) project. The new organisation The Network: TUFH has created a platform to develop a continuum of innovation of health services and innovation of health professions education.
In 2004, at the occassion of The Network: TUFH's 25th anniversary, an updated paper on the association appeared in Medical Education (2004, 38: 1212-1218), written by Arther Kaufman, Jan van Dalen, Gerard Majoor and Fernando Mora Carrasco.
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