Technology Enhanced medical education and collaboration

Hello again

Today it was more about medical education and collaboration in healthcare.

In one presentation, the need for multiple repositories of digital resources, additional description and uploading of resources in medical education was discussed. The solution in linking and searching structured data would be semantic web, so as to create typed links between data from different sources.

Another presenter talked about the semantic MediaWiki, an interface implemented like a Wikipedia web-based tool to be used by users who don’t know how to browse, search and query medical interventions. As an example, the presenter showed an impressive demo of a European project for Mind and Body Fitness for Life and which combines cognitive and physical activities, the Long Lasting Memories, which you can also test yourself (www.longlastingmemories.eu).

Another presentation talked about using education theory to design a patient and health education system capable of increasing health literacy. The reason for this is that information only is not the issue, but using the information correctly and applying it is the main point in health education, especially since we all tend to selectively believe (what we want to believe).

Another presentation showed an innovative health information system currently being implemented and evaluated in Lesotho. The idea is to help the national health system adopt computer-based solutions to help reduce HIV prevalence, in a country where challenges include paper-based health systems, limited resources, lack of connectivity and power, and high distance between health centres. Following a positive evaluation, the program is planned to scale up to another 8 countries.

In another presentation from Norway, a research took place to improve how nurses in hospitals communicate with each other and how such a communication can be prevented from becoming an interruption. This is especially important when a nurse is in communication with a patient. As creating a ‘context sensitive phone’ seems to be far from real, the presenter showed results from replacing older systems with systems that allow group awareness, and how one nurse’s actions interact with other nurses’ ones.

Good continuation and hope to see you next year!