Ehealth education for future clinical health professionals: An integrated analysis of Australian expectations and challenges

Australia is experiencing challenges in its health workforce profile to embrace reforms based on ehealth. Although there is much literature on the importance of ehealth education, our study shows that ehealth education for entry-level clinicians is not meeting the demands for a technologically savvy clinical health workforce. This poster reports on a nationally funded project. Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views in this project do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching, which examines ehealth education for the future clinical workforce in Australia. It discusses 3 key components: the current state of teaching, learning and assessment of ehealth education in health profession degrees in Australia; inclusion of ehealth competencies in accreditation guidelines of health profession degrees and ehealth skills and competencies in job descriptions for the future Australian clinical workforce. It is based on a systems view methodology that these three components are interrelated and influence the development of an ehealth capable health workforce. Results highlight that further research and development across the health workforce is needed before the education of future clinical health professionals can keep pace with the changes that ehealth is bringing to the Australian healthcare system

Advancing Ehealth Education for the Clinical Health Professions

This is the final report of a project that aimed to encourage and support program coordinators and directors of Australian undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs in all allied health, nursing and medical professions to address the need for Ehealth education for entry-level clinical health professionals

eHealth Technology Competencies for Health Professionals Working in Home Care to Support Older Adults to Age in Place: Outcomes of a Two-Day Collaborative Workshop

Background: The demand for care is increasing, whereas in the near future the number of people working in professional care will not match with the demand for care. eHealth technology can help to meet the growing demand for care. Despite the apparent positive effects of eHealth technology, there are still barriers to technology adoption related to the absence of a composite set of knowledge and skills among health care professionals regarding the use of eHealth technology. Objective: The objective of this paper is to discuss the competencies required by health care professionals working in home care, with eHealth technologies such as remote telecare and ambient assisted living (AAL), mobile health, and fall detection systems. Methods: A two-day collaborative workshop was undertaken with academics across multiple disciplines with experience in working on funded research regarding the application and development of technologies to support older people. Results: The findings revealed that health care professionals working in home care require a subset of composite skills as well as technology-specific competencies to develop the necessary aptitude in eHealth care. This paper argues that eHealth care technology skills must be instilled in health care professionals to ensure that technologies become integral components of future care delivery, especially to support older adults to age in place. Educating health care professionals with the necessary skill training in eHealth care will improve service delivery and optimise the eHealth care potential to reduce costs by improving efficiency. Moreover, embedding eHealth care competencies within training and education for health care professionals ensures that the benefits of new technologies are realized by casting them in the context of the larger system of care. These care improvements will potentially support the independent living of older persons at home. Conclusions: This paper describes the health care professionals’ competencies and requirements needed for the use of eHealth technologies to support elderly adults to age in place. In addition, this paper underscores the need for further discussion of the changing role of health care professionals working in home care within the context of emerging eHealth care technologies. The findings are of value to local and central government, health care professionals, service delivery organizations, and commissioners of care to use this paper as a framework to conduct and develop competencies for health care professionals working with eHealth technologies

Building Theoretical Foundations for Electronic Governance Benchmarking

The success of the electronic governance (EGOV) benchmarking has been limited so far. Lacking a theory to integrate existing conceptualizations has made the acquisition and sharing of knowledge produced by different benchmarking exercises difficult. In order to address this problem, this paper: 1) explains the nature of the EGOV benchmarking activity though a well-established theoretical framework - Activity Theory, 2) applies the framework to carry out a mapping between a number of existing EGOV benchmarking conceptualizations, 3) develops an unified conceptualization based on these mappings and 4) validates the resulting model though a real-life national EGOV strategy development project. The use of the Activity Theory in the paper has enabled defining and relating initial dimensions of the EGOV benchmarking activity, and mapping the dimensions present in existing conceptualizations. This not only created a unifying theoretical basis for conceptualizing the EGOV benchmarking activity but allowed learning from and integrating existing conceptualizations. The work impacts on the EGOV benchmarking practice by enabling a logical design of the activity, and contextually correct understanding of existing EGOV benchmarking results with respect to their intended usage

Building Theoretical Foundations for Electronic Governance Benchmarking

Part 1: FoundationsInternational audienceThe success of the electronic governance (EGOV) benchmarking has been limited so far. Lacking a theory to integrate existing conceptualizations has made the acquisition and sharing of knowledge produced by different benchmarking exercises difficult. In order to address this problem, this paper: 1) explains the nature of the EGOV benchmarking activity though a wellestablished theoretical framework - Activity Theory, 2) applies the framework to carry out a mapping between a number of existing EGOV benchmarking conceptualizations, 3) develops an unified conceptualization based on these mappings and 4) validates the resulting model though a real-life national EGOV strategy development project. The use of the Activity Theory in the paper has enabled defining and relating initial dimensions of the EGOV benchmarking activity, and mapping the dimensions present in existing conceptualizations. This not only created a unifying theoretical basis for conceptualizing the EGOV benchmarking activity but allowed learning from and integrating existing conceptualizations. The work impacts on the EGOV benchmarking practice by enabling a logical design of the activity, and contextually correct understanding of existing EGOV benchmarking results with respect to their intended usage

Grundlagen des Benchmarkings

Der Begriff Benchmarking, nach dem heutigen Verständnis wurde vor allem durch die US-Firma Xerox maßgebend geprägt. Robert C. Camp, Manager bei Xerox, bezeichnete Benchmarking als „die Suche nach den besten Industriepraktiken, die zu Spitzenleistungen führen“. Darauf folgten viele verschiedene Definitionen dieses Begriffes als auch abgeleitete Ziele, die im Wesentlichen auf die Arbeit von Camp zurückzuführen sind. Über die Zeit erfolgte eine Erweiterung des Konzeptes vom reinen Vergleichsinstrument hin zur Managementmethode, die zum organisationalen Lernen sowie zur positiven Entwicklung der Organisation beiträgt. Dabei wurde Benchmarking aus verschiedenen Perspektiven betrachtet und in neue Anwendungsfelder eingeführt. Hierzu wird in der Literatur und der unternehmerischen Praxis zwischen unterschiedlichen Arten von Benchmarking-Objekten und -Partnern unterschieden. Die Basis für die Durchführung eines Benchmarking bildet in der Regel ein strukturierter, mehrstufiger Prozess, der sogenannte Benchmarking -Prozess. Als Orientierungshilfe für die Entwicklung eines Benchmarkings dient dabei häufig der PDCA-Zyklus nach Deming, entnommen aus dem Total Quality Management (TQM). Der PDCA-Zyklus beschreibt einen kontinuierlichen Prozess ohne Endzustand. Es ist Aufgabe der Unternehmen sich durchgehend weiterzuentwickeln und ständige Verbesserung anzustreben