Modelling digital knowledge transfer: Nurse Supervisors transforming learning at Point of Care to Advance Nursing Practice

Limited adoption of mobile technology for informal learning and continuing professionaldevelopment within Australian healthcare environments has been explained primarily as an issueof insufficient digital and ehealth literacy of healthcare professionals. This study explores nursesupervisors’ use of mobile technology for informal learning and continuing professional developmentboth for their own professional practice, and in their role in modelling digital knowledge transfer, byfacilitating the learning and teaching of nursing students in the workplace. A convenience sample of27 nurse supervisors involved with guiding and supporting undergraduate nurses participated in oneof six focus groups held in two states of Australia. Expanding knowledge emerged as the key theme ofimportance to this group of clinicians. Although nurse supervisors regularly browsed Internet sourcesfor learning and teaching purposes, a mixed understanding of the mobile learning activities thatcould be included as informal learning or part of formal continuing professional development wasdetected. Participants need educational preparation and access to mobile learning opportunities toimprove and maintain their digital and ehealth literacy to appropriately model digital professionalismwith students. Implementation of mobile learning at point of care to enable digital knowledgetransfer, augment informal learning for students and patients, and support continuing professionaldevelopment opportunities is necessary. Embedding digital and ehealth literacy within nursingcurricula will promote mobile learning as a legitimate nursing function and advance nursing practice

Identifying opportunities to integrate digital professionalism into curriculum: a comparison of social media use by health profession students at an Australian university in 2013 and 2016

Social media has become ubiquitous to modern life. Consequently, embedding digitalprofessionalism into undergraduate health profession courses is now imperative and augmentinglearning and teaching with mobile technology and social media on and off campus is a currentcurriculum focus. The aim of this study was to explore whether patterns of social media use forpersonal or informal learning by undergraduate health profession students enrolled at an Australianuniversity across four campuses has changed over time. A previously validated online survey wasadministered in 2013 to a cohort of health profession students as part of an Australian survey. In 2016,the same survey was distributed to a later cohort of health profession students. Three open-endedquestions to elicit descriptive information regarding the use of social media for study purposeswere added to the later survey. A comparative analysis of both cohorts was undertaken and socialmedia acceptance and penetration was shown to increase. Health profession students are nowmore interactive users of Facebook and Twitter, and they have become more familiar with careerdevelopment sites, such as LinkedIn. The maturation of social media platforms within a three-yearperiod has created realistic opportunities to integrate social media for personal and study purposesinto the health profession education curriculum to ensure student understanding of the necessity formaintaining digital professionalism in the workplace