Home
About
Publications
Teaching
Blog
Services
Connect

About
About me
Blog
Connect
Contact me
Home
Privacy Policy
Publications
Services
Teaching

Author: Charmaine Cunningham

Making sense…learning about sense-making

Remember the movie ‘Back to the future’ where Marty (Michael J. Fox) travels through time, whilst figuring out what is happening and how to influence

October 28, 2016

Emergency care in Africa: There is no free lunch…

Let hunger be ranked first because if you are hungry you cannot work! No, health is number one, because if you are ill you cannot

September 26, 2016

BADEM2016

Yesterday I had the privilege to participate in an emergency medicine symposium held by BadEM in Cape Town. Conferences, symposiums and workshops that attract big

September 11, 2016

Gugu Zulu: A story about the barriers to access emergency care in Africa

In Africa, surviving serious illness or injury is like participating in Survivor. In order to survive, people need to outwit, outlast and outplay the health

July 31, 2016

The logframe…time to move on?

‘Those development programs that are most precisely and easily measured are the least transformational, and those programs that are most transformational are the least measurable.’

July 14, 2016

Access to care: time to reconsider the concept?

Imagine the uncertainty and level of decision-making required to visit a healthcare facility for a cholesterol test, blood pressure check or the renewal of a

June 7, 2016

Making EFAR stick

There is no question about the need to develop better emergency care systems in low and middle income countries (LMIC). However, the significant barriers to

May 4, 2016

EFAR: a sustainable way to increase access to emergency care

Low and middle-income countries not only suffer the highest rates of every category of injury, they also have the highest rates of acute complications for

April 15, 2016

Studying again

My apologies, I’ve not blogged in a while! However, I am working on new blogs, so watch this space! I fell behind because I took on

March 31, 2016

Transitions in care and other fuzzy boundaries: Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia

Please note that the following blog are my views and observations. It does not represent the views of AFEM or WHO. Healthcare systems are complex

December 22, 2015

A brief summary: health systems of Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania and South Africa

To improve the delivery of emergency care; awareness of the health system and in-country factors that influence the delivery of healthcare services are needed. Recently

December 8, 2015

Stock-outs in SA hospitals…could it be that our daily inventory systems are outdated?

Innovation is for many what medical progress is about. It is about better technologies to diagnose, intervene or new treatment regimes. What about the way

October 30, 2015

Territorial wars, imaginary boundaries and the patient journey

For most of my career I have had a foot in two worlds. One world is inside of a hospital as a highly specialised nurse

August 25, 2015

Improving access to care in Zambia

Emergencies occur everywhere, and each day, they consume resources regardless of whether there are systems capable of achieving good outcomes. (WHO Bulletin) The above emphasises

July 13, 2015

Facilitating change: Five Lessons learnt facilitating training in Zambia

I am travelling to Zambia next week to evaluate and build on a project to improve access to emergency care in the country. It seemed

June 17, 2015

On ‘death and dying’ and organisational change

‘Buy-in’ is a term commonly used when talking about change in the workplace. We want everyone to buy in to the change. Often, supervisors and

May 29, 2015

Mistake-proofing lessons from an Antarctic swim

In 2005 Lewis Pugh undertook the world’s most southerly long-distance swim at Peterman Island in the Antarctic Peninsula at South 65⁰ latitude. Antarctica is the

May 13, 2015

Ebola: Are we learning the right lessons?

Last week I attended a conference where the Ebola outbreak was covered by addressing rapid needs assessments and identification of potential cases, the effect of

May 1, 2015

Communication: Semmelweis vs Florence Nightingale

A comparison of two intriguing nineteenth century change agents. The lady with the lamp: Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, demonstrated the effectiveness of hospital

March 25, 2015

A match made in healthcare improvement heaven

I’ve been collaborating with the Lean Institute Africa for the past six months and the collaboration has now been formalised. As such, Lean Institute Africa

March 20, 2015

Dr Charmaine Cunningham charmaine@cunningham.web.za