Dr. Erlinda Palaganas, chair of the Capacity Building Committee and Ms. Phoebe Ullalim-Pasiwen, project development officer of CRHRDC took part in the monthly DOH-CAR Kapihan at its regional conference hall on August 19, 2015, dubbed as the “Health Research and Health Events”.  

The inclusion of CRHRDC in the kapihan was related to the Philippine National Health Research System Week which is observed every second week of August every year. Other national health awareness events in August reported were on family planning, adolescent immunization, lung care, sight saving, breastfeeding awareness, mother-baby friendly hospital initiative. There were also health events observed on a day- basis (i.e., National Tuberculosis Day) and on week-basis (i.e. mother-baby friendly hospital initiative week, 1st week; national hospital, 2nd week; brain attack awareness , 3rd week).

During the celebrations, DOH and other institutions conduct advocacy activities and updates.

The Research Management Committee is faced with the challenges of endorsing 7 -8 research proposals for technical review and soliciting one proposal each member institution of the Cordillera Regional Health Research and Development Consortium (CRHRDC).  Engineer Nathan Lubrica, chairman of the Committee, expressed this during the Executive meeting held May 6, 2015 at the Casa Vallejo, Baguio City.

Because of this, the Committee has to re-strategize strongly and aggressively their campaigns.  They propose the following:

• contact  research proponents to determine the status of their research proposals with the assistance of the secretariat;

• request each member institution to present one research proposal for review by the Committee members during their regular meeting;

• reach out to all state universities and colleges in the region through social marketing and render technical  assistance together with the Capability Building Committee and other CRHRDC members;

• expedite research evaluation by determining the technical and ethical soundness of the proposals to be undertaken with the Ethics Review Committee;

• conduct a write shop by the second quarter  to enable proponents put details on their proposals; and

• if so required, they make themselves available for consultation.

Currently, the Committee has designed a flowchart to fast tract the approval of research proposals.  Thus, delayed evaluation should not be a problem to proponents in receiving the feedback.   It is also in the Committee where two member-institutions (Saint Louis University and University of the Cordilleras) have researches funded by PCHRD and are ready for implementation subject to MOA signing.  The experience in accessing the fund could serve as testimony to inspire other institutions to come up with their own.

Meanwhile, Regional Director  Julius Caesar Sicat of the Department of Science and Technology shared  on how the DOST was able to generate several municipal S&T projects beyond the target for their grant-in-aid project and for which the Committee could adopt without sacrificing the quality of the proposal.

“What we did, we require the mayors to appoint point persons in their municipality.  Then we call these people for trainings on project identification, research proposal preparation, among others.  After equipping them the necessary skills, we call them for a two-day write shop. We also bring templates for them to use as bases for the write shop, “Director Sicat related.

CRHRDC officers and members led by the chairman Chancellor Raymundo Rovillos gave their nods for the implementation of the Philippine National Health Research System Strategy Roadmap 2015-2019. This was learned during the observation of the 9th PNHRS awareness month on August 24, 2015 at the Philippine International Convention Center, Manila.

The roadmap envisions a dynamic and responsive health research community working for the attainment of national and global health needs. To attain this, the PCHRD together with all regional health consortia in the country including the CRHRDC shall pursue interventions in the following strategic objectives:

1. Ensuring good System governance;
2. Creating and sustaining an enabling environment for health research stakeholders;
3. Institutionalizing effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation of research programs, projects and activities;
4. Ensuring responsiveness of research to current and emerging needs;
5. Improving access to and dissemination of updated information;
6. Developing capacities for conducting, managing and utilizing health research;
7. Establishing and maintaining common service facilities for research; and
8. Strengthening resource mobilization for health research and development.

The CRHRDC’s positive response is due to the innovations brought forth by the roadmap roll out to the regions. This includes the availability of a tool to monitor the performance of the System and the regional consortiums as well as the contribution of the region to the System. Other innovations are the twinning strategies where collaboration to undertake health research project can be between and among consortia (not only institution to institution), increasing investments for capacity building (e.g. Newton fund, USAID STRIDE, Oscar Lopez Fund for Climate Change) to increase utilization of the NUHRA/RUHRA, replication of best practice on the establishment of common service for the Tuklas Lunas (drug discovery) program.   All of these are expected to create a research community in the region.

For its part, CRHRDC will strengthen its organizational structure by engaging more stakeholders from the region and the provinces.   

This was revealed during the Orientation on Research Proposal Preparation on April 17, 2015 at the University of the Philippines Baguio.  Said agenda was initiated in the region by the Cordillera Regional Health Research and Development Consortium (CRHRDC) in consultation with health sector stakeholders.   

The research agenda is categorized into four themes: health financing, health service delivery, socio-environment concerns, and health technology development.  Research topics are also identified under each theme:

Health Financing

• Financial risk protection (Pharmaco-economics on cardio-vascular diseases and diabetes, assessment of health benefits, social insurance- out-patient benefits and no balance billing)

Health Service Delivery

• Health service assessment on vulnerable groups (eg.OFW)
• Complementary and alternative medicine
• Indigenous knowledge systems and practices
• Health promotion
• Communicable and Non-communicable diseases

Socio-environment Concerns

• Environment and climate change
• Health social sciences
• Environment and sanitation

Health Technology Development

• Drug discovery and development
• Information and communications technology for health

With its availability, higher education institutes (HEIs) can use it as guide for coming up with relevant studies, policy makers can tap the results of the studies as evidence for their decision-making to approve programs and projects, and the Commission on Higher Education can incorporate it in the National Higher Education Research Agenda for HEIs adopt in formulating their own institution research agenda.

The CRHRDC approved it on February 17, 2015 in Baguio City with inputs from the higher education institutes (University of the Philippines Baguio, University of the Cordilleras, University of Baguio, Saint Louis University, Cordillera Career Development College, Benguet State University), Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Health, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center, National Economic and Development Authority,  Department of Science and Technology, and the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development.