Advancing ehealth education for the clinical health professions


The final report of Advancing ehealth education for the clinical health professions by Gray et al (2014) provides important information for curriculum design and renewal in ehealth education for undergraduate and postgraduate programs. The report excludes continuing professional development, but does focus on what has occurred, what is happening and the gaps they identified to ensure that ICT/ehealth education and training upfront for future planning in educational programs. The authors define ehealth and include the increased connectivity afforded by internet and web-based platforms.

There was an acknowledgement of a lack of systematic approach to designing, teaching, assessing or accrediting ehealth curriculums. It was stated though, that nursing was more abundant in the literature than other health professions. The authors concluded there was no consistent, disciplined approach to educating the future clinical workforce. Chapter 5 provides a table of the resources they identified  that could be used for teaching entry level ehealth education. Chapter 6 provides scenarios that can be used as an adjunct in teaching ehealth. The report also provides findings of of review of accreditation documents, job advertisements for knowledge and skills in ehealth.The report makes 5 recommendations to advance ehealth education for the clinical professions. These include a focus on learners; educators; profession/industry bodies; employers and policy-makers.

The authors conclude that currently there is a lack of access to high quality, widespread formal education in ehealth and health informatics.The main implication of this report is I envisage there will be an increase in the level of ehealth and ICT in formal education of the clinical professions. This orientation will have an impact on clinical supervisors in practice. There may be an increase in understanding  and interest in using ehealth in its various forms (depending on your definition of the term) by students. This may create issues with current policies on the use of digital technology in the workplace. There may also be a culture at workplaces where introducing new ways of accessing that may or may not include an increase in the use of ehealth technologies.

The current topic of interest is now BYOD or not! If digital technology is to be used, will staff or students be expected to bring their own device (BYOD) or use one provided? Who will pay for the download… Now we are back to the bigger issue of security. Digital technology, ehealth, mlearning is continuing to evolve, clinical supervisors need to understand and be conversant with the technology used and allowed to be used in their workplace.

If you have any suggestions or comments about ehealth education in the curriculum and the impact on the workplace you are welcome to post them here. Join us @PEPCommunity.

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