In 2020, the WHO Lyon Office, in partnership with the WHO regional offices, established the COVID-19 laboratory Community of Practice, which was eventually renamed WHO Public Health Laboratories webinar series in 2021. The key objectives of the initiative were to:
- enhance WHO guidance dissemination;
- enhance peer to peer exchanges and knowledge sharing; and
- improve WHO’s understanding of barriers to guidance and best practices implementation.
An annual survey was undertaken in July 2021 to assess participant satisfaction, expectations and ongoing needs. Results of this survey indicated that participants found an overall improvement in their knowledge and performance after participation in the webinar series, that the information acquired through the webinars could be disseminated further amongst peers and also their learnings could be integrated into their everyday work practice and decision making.
The results of this survey also catalyzed efforts to revise the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework of the series to assess how it is meeting its key objectives. This included the addition of new participant profile information to the registration form, the addition of short feedback survey at the end of each webinar, and the development of an online dashboard displaying information about registration and attendance at the various webinar events. In mid-2022, WHO also initiated a collaboration with Project ECHO, from the University of New Mexico, to support the organization of the series, strengthen the M&E framework and facilitate its implementation.
By the end of 2022, 41 webinar events had been rolled out, with more than 40 000 cumulative users registering, from 200 countries across all six WHO regions. The number of registrations per webinars varies according to topic, ranging from 110 (a session on integrating COVID-19 surveillance into the influenza surveillance system) to 4433 (a session on acute hepatitis). Whilst the series initially began as a way to disseminate guidance and information about the developing COVID-19 pandemic, the series has increasingly been utilized as a way to share knowledge and insight about a wide range of laboratory-related topics including other health emergencies (mpox, acute hepatitis and Sudan virus disease) and cross-cutting subjects like laboratory management and risk communication.
In 2023, a detailed analysis of all data collected through the various monitoring and evaluation activities from the series will be undertaken to identify the strengths, challenges and opportunities to continuously improve both the range of topics offered through the webinar series and streamline the physical delivery of the sessions and related content.