Today we are delighted to launch the ReLAB-HS Rehabilitation Resource Repository. This aim of this new website is to improve discoverability of and access to high quality rehabilitation related publications that have been created by organisations in support of the development and delivery of rehabilitation services and their integration within health systems.
The website will provide a single, easy to use, comprehensive, open and searchable repository of high quality, evidence based publications created by organisations that support the global rehabilitation community. The aim is to make it easy to find resources that inform service provision as well as guide the design and implementation of much needed rehabilitation services.
Why Do We Need This? – Making Search Easy
According to a recent report, 2.41 billion individuals worldwide live with conditions that would benefit from rehabilitation services, with approximately 1 in 3 individuals requiring rehabilitation services throughout the course of their illness or injury, a need that is particularly evident in low-middle income countries. Rehabilitation services have the potential to improve an individual’s functioning and their ability to successfully and optimally interact with their environment. However, to develop and provide optimal rehabilitation services, rehabilitation leaders and professionals from around the world benefit from easy access to up-to-date, evidence-informed education.
There are a plethora of excellent evidence-based resources developed by rehabilitation stakeholders worldwide that include guidelines, manuals and toolkits. These resources, relating to the development and delivery of rehabilitation services, are extremely useful to organisations and individuals working to strengthen rehabilitation services within health systems. However, sometimes they can be difficult to discover and/or find amongst the wealth of health information available on the web.
The First of Its Kind – What you Can Find In The Repository
The aim of new Rehabilitation Resource Repository is to provide an open and accessible online portal that exposes quality evidence-based rehabilitation resources to everyone that wishes to use them. It contains rehabilitation related manuals, toolkits, policies, protocols and guides that inform and support service development and delivery.
Resource inclusion criteria:
- Relevant to one or more rehabilitation professions and other rehabilitation related health systems stakeholders.
- Free to access and is not subject to copyright restrictions.
- Includes only interventions, policies and guidelines that are supported by high quality evidence and display references where appropriate.
You Can Get Involved – Download as well as Contribute Resources
The repository is a fully searchable web portal available at resources.relabhs.org. It has been designed from the from the ground up to be useful and relevant for all rehabilitation stakeholders and care providers around the world. This means you can access the repository on mobile devices or a computer and anywhere you have an internet connection.
As well as accessing the site from anywhere you can upload from anywhere too. When uploaded to the site the repository manager will check submissions to ensure the best content is available to be accessed. The resource repository manager will also continue to search for and evaluate new resources in an ongoing effort to keep new resources easily accessible to all.
Access The Repository Today – Made Possible By ReLAB-HS
This rehabilitation resource repository has been developed as part of Learning, Acting and Building for Rehabilitation in Health Systems (ReLAB-HS). Funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), ReLAB-HS is a global project that will support the development of health systems that are responsive to the growing needs for rehabilitation within populations.
It seeks to co-design and implement innovative, comprehensive, cost-effective interventions that strengthen health systems for provision of rehabilitation, including assistive technology. The ReLAB-HS consortium comprises six international partners with expertise in health systems, implementation science, and delivery innovations.
As one of these partners Physiopedia’s role is to develop resources that contribute to development of the rehabilitation workforce as we as online educational content for any part of the project.
This work is supported by the USAID funded Learning Acting Building for Rehabilitation in Health Systems (ReLAB-HS) project and is not possible without the generous and committed contribution of the Leahy War Victims fund.
ReLAB-HS is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is implemented under cooperative agreement number 7200AA20CA00033. The consortium is managed by prime recipient, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.