Implementing collaborations across different institutions not only provided a meaningful experience for our respective students but also gave us a chance to assess the development and productivity of the collaborations among two groups of students with no prior interactions.
New integrative strategies can be developed and implemented (collaboration exercises) (Johansson et al. 2013; Alharbi et al. 2014).
Details of how to operationalize and implement collaboration were left to the discretion of local leaders.
However, health professionals face difficulties in TB control effort due to the nature of fluid population movements, resource constraints and ambiguous mechanisms to implement collaboration along the border.
These facilities were expected to implement collaboration following introduction of the early discharge of newborns, defined as a postpartum stay of approximately 48 hours (2 days) for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery and approximately 96 hours (4 days) for an uncomplicated caesarean [ 3- 5].
They also foresaw challenges in implementing such collaboration, highlighting discordant fee structures, potential administrative burdens, and low capacity for quality assurance systems.
Implementing the collaborations between two institutions allowed an assessment of the student collaborations from before the groups of students had met for the first time until after they had finished their projects, thus providing insight about the formation and conduct of such collaborations that could not have been obtained otherwise.
There are already many successful public health programs implemented in collaboration with the NGOs including National Action Plan for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases and health promotion (in collaboration with Heartfile, a non-governmental think tank) and the Leprosy Control Program (in collaboration with the Marie-Adelaide Leprosy Society) [ 6].
