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Keynote II - Health Education Challenges and Opportunities

Title: Health Education Challenges and Opportunities
Speaker: Assistant Professor Dr. Thanee Kaewthummanukul

Biography:
Thanee Kaewthummanukul, PhD, RN, APN, serves as Dean of the Faculty of Nursing at Chiang Mai
University and Director of the CMU FON WHO Collaborating Center in Nursing and Midwifery
Keynote Sessions
Development, Thailand. He holds leadership roles at the university and manages research in
Workplace Health Promotion and Occupational Health Nursing. Dr. Thanee received the Outstanding
Education Promoter award in Chiang Mai Province (2022) for his contributions to nursing education
and research.

Abstract:
Education is vital to the healthcare ecosystem, empowering professionals and shaping improved
patient outcomes. Health education is needed across the life experience to improve individual and
population health and to enhance workforce skills to ensure that health professionals and other
workers whose responsibilities include health can contribute positively. The majority of health
education programs are school, faculty, or organization-based and are taught as part of standardized
curriculums. Today, the modern world is changing and growing rapidly in terms of technology and
education. Modern technologies in today’s knowledge society and information technologies have
become a sign of progress, improvement, and quality that determine our lives and have an essential
role in health education relating to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease symptoms.
With this rapid growth, there comes the challenges and opportunities of health educational
management that respond to the needs and strengths of each student.

Training teachers to be ready to instruct students in terms of skills, techniques, and tools is critical.
Using innovative approaches, methods, and formats, such as games, teacher-tubers, MOOCs, lifelong
learning, or business e-learning, is the pedagogy for health education. The future of health education
or educational paradigm, especially after the Covid-19 period must begin with a series of
fundamental changes occurring across the entire educational system and emphasizing the
transformations from professional silos to an interprofessional and intersectoral approach; from
online emergency COVID-19 education to transformative education; from degree completion to
lifelong learning; from focusing on content and isolated courses to focusing on the necessary
competences for enhancing the health and well-being of the population, while connecting the
power of technology in education, from content-centered to learner-centered approaches, and from
a focus on students’ interests to a focus on societal needs (Magana-Valladares & Penniecook, 2022).

As the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and innovative technologies and practices
emerge, health education is a crucial consideration that can have a tremendous positive impact on
the lives of world populations. Proper training is necessary for safety and reliability and for providing
the best possible care for our patients as we prepare to take on the health challenges of the coming
decades.

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