The 16^th International Conference of Telemedicine Society of India ‘Telemedicon 2020’ was held virtually from 18^th - 20^th December 2020 and was well attended. The total overall registrations were 1126. There were 202 speakers, chairpersons and moderators. MOHAN Foundation’s E-learning courses were featured in the segment ‘Showcasing Tele-Health Success Stories from India.’ Dr. Sumana Navin, Course Director, MOHAN Foundation was invited to speak in this segment on ‘Tele-education for transplant coordinators - the experience over three years.’

She said that MOHAN Foundation started structured training programmes for transplant coordinators to impart the necessary knowledge and skills for the job in 2009. Training was conducted face to face with durations varying from one week to one month. In addition, MOHAN Foundation embarked on a tele-education programme and formally rolled out a one-year E-learning course, the Post Graduate Diploma in Transplant Coordination and Grief Counselling, three years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in expanding the use of tele-education with the introduction of a short-term course, the Transplant Coordination Professional Certificate.

The geographic spread of participants for the E-learning courses covers the entire country and includes participants from Jammu, Kashmir, Bihar and Mizoram. International participants are from Qatar, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria, Spain, Nepal and Pakistan. Tele-education participants increased sixfold compared to face-to-face participants in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic with 24 participants for the face-to-face training versus 155 tele-education participants. In 2018 and 2019, there were 667 participants for the face-to-face training totally versus 15 tele-education participants.

(Supported by Tata Trusts and SBI Foundation)