Building a global health education network for clinical care and research. The benefits and challenges of distance learning tools. Lessons learned from the Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education

Expanding the capacity for clinical care and health research is a global priority and a global challenge. The Johns Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education (CCGHE) was established in 2005 to provide access to high-quality training to health care providers in resource-limited settings. The CCGHE made a strategic decision to develop, use, and evaluate distance learning platforms to achieve its mission. In the initial years of this new program, several lessons have been learned that may be helpful to other programs considering the use of distance learning programs to expand global health clinical and research capacity.