NextGenU.org

NextGenU.org is an online platform for the philanthropic work of the Ulrich and Ruth Frank Foundation for International Health (The Frank Foundation). The mission of the Frank Foundation is to democratize education globally and to improve the health and well-being of humanity and the planet. The Frank Foundation promotes research and development of knowledge assets that contribute to solving global challenges related to human and planetary health and education and supports efforts to advance education for all to help people build better lives.

Project start date : 01/07/2001

Last updated : 15/04/2024

Beneficiary country : Cameroon Canada Congo (the Democratic Republic of the) Guadeloupe India Kenya Martinique Sudan (the) Trinidad and Tobago United States of America (the)

Healthcare themes targeted

  • Primary healthcare
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Vaccination
  • Chronic diseases
  • Emergency services

Fields of application

  • Health professional training
  • Telemedicine (remote diagnosis and consultations)
  • Information, education and communication for behaviour change (IEC)

Stage of development

  • Routine project/operational

Financing method

  • Public (grant/subsidies, call for proposals/call for tender, etc.)
  • Private (private investors, crowdfunding, philanthropy, etc.)
  • NGO
  • Government agency (USAID, etc.)
  • Intergovernmental or international agency

Area where the project is utilised

  • International (in several countries)

Economic model(s)

  • Income generated by beneficiaries
  • Revenue generated by the beneficiaries/healthcare facilities
  • Subsidies
  • Donations

Target audience

  • Healthcare professionals and structures (hospitals, healthcare centres/clinics, health networks)
  • Patient family/entourage

Project objectives

  • Decreased mortality
  • Decreased morbidity
  • Reduced suffering
  • Improved treatment
  • Other (please explain)

Materials used

  • Cellular (mobile) phone
  • Smartphone
  • Tablet
  • Computer
  • Connected objects

Technologies used

  • Mobile telecommunications (without data connection)
  • Internet
  • Mobile app (Android, iOS, Windows Phone, HTML5, etc.)

Offline use

Yes

Open source

Yes

Open data

Yes

Independent evaluation

Yes, auto-evaluated or evaluated by a related organization

About the sponsor

NextGenU.org

NextGenU.org (a learning portal at the Frank Foundation invented to help democratize education in 2001) aims to educate and improve the capacity of the health workforce. Learners from every country and through over 2,100 universities and Institutions have accessed courses for free! Our courses span from undergraduate-level pre-health sciences, nursing, and community health worker training through medical and public health graduate training, medical residency programs, and continuing medical education.

We offer health sciences courses with free certificates, including courses for physicians and other health providers, curricula for nurses and Graduate Medical Education. We have also created a free full curriculum for a Master’s Degree in Public Health, and an independent learning community at Public Health U to facilitate public health learners from a variety of settings worldwide. This public health training includes curricular threading related to substance use disorders and mental health issues in every course and offers a first-of-its-kind concentration, An Interdisciplinary Concentration in Substance Use Disorders, Mental Health, and Equity in Health and Healthcare. University partners who are currently piloting NextGenU.org’s free graduate-level public health courses have enrolled medical students while at Public Health U, practicing physicians and other health workers study while continuing to work and treat thousands of patients around the world every year.

Our learning platform is not simply a cluster of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), but expertly-created, competency-based courses that are cost-free, advertisement-free, barrier-free, and carbon-free. This free model has been successfully tested in North American medical and public health arenas with students, and with community health workers and primary care physicians in Kenya and in India – showing identical knowledge gain with greater student satisfaction compared to traditional courses and positive effects on complex health worker behaviors (like counseling) and attitudes (like stigma). Our model also facilitates the creation of a global community of learning and practice.

Our funders and partners include CDCHarvardNATOStanford, and WHO; we are an initiative created by the Ulrich and Ruth Frank Foundation for International Health. NextGenU.org works to create courses, curricula, and programs to train physicians and their teams to prevent and treat substance use disorders. Every course invites the learner to consider related addiction and mental health issues because substance use disorders affect 1 in 7 people, are caused by multiple factors, and create health concerns for the individual, family, and community. Bringing awareness and training to all physicians and their teams regarding the need to assess, prevent, treat, and refer those who experience substance use disorders increases the number of people who receive help for substance use disorders and reduces stigma among health professionals so patients get the care they need.

Physicians and physicians in training, along with other prescribers (e.g., physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners) — including students, alumni, and staff through more than 100 US medical schools and 140 US universities — have registered for courses with NextGenU.org. Many learning communities adopt NextGenU.org materials, and we have the privilege of assisting professors from around the world as they adapt the courses to their students’ unique learning environments. NextGenU.org provides quality courses that other learning communities build upon, decreasing costs for students and learning communities to increase the numbers of physicians and other health workers and contribute to improved learning and health equity for all.

Our volunteer subject matter experts, course developers, advisory groups, mentors, and the millions of experts who have generously shared their learning resources online are providing this unprecedented opportunity for globally transforming health education. Please get in touch with us here or browse our available courses.

Sector : Institutions (Communities, public authorities, NGOs, foundations, etc.)

Country of origin : United States of America (the)

Contact : Sponsor website Project website

Partners

  • American College of Preventive Medicine

    Institutions (Communities, public authorities, NGOs, foundations, etc.)

  • Pan American Health Organization

    Institutions (Communities, public authorities, NGOs, foundations, etc.)

  • European Lifestyle Medicine Organization

    Healthcare (professionals and structures)

  • Institute of Lifestyle Medicine at Harvard

    Academic entities (Universities, research laboratories, etc)