The challenge to the four-status eLearning model for healthcare professionals: a critique on a developing world case study

Abstract

This paper presents the critical reviews of the advantages and disadvantages of eLearning for health professionals. The impact of eLearning on healthcare professionals is explored; the focus is on health professionals in rural Thailand. Literature suggests that there are four main topics related to the drivers and barriers in eLearning, they are: Infrastructure; Finance; Policies; and Culture (IFPC). Because of the reports of online learning success and the growing use in all areas of higher education, understanding of successful implantation is limited, especially for healthcare professionals in developing countries. The model of barriers and drivers is being adopted as a template for the design of all eLearning, to the exclusion of other ideas. An evaluation of the adoption of e-learning in Thailand is presented along with a discussion on the findings. This paper suggested that the four-status model would help understand how to successfully implement an eLearning course. This has interesting consequences for the implementation of e-learning especially in developing countries