This excitable and exaggerated release appeared last week.
RMIT Online and Digital Health CRC collaborate to revolutionise healthcare
Published: 22 July 2020
Guest post by Staff Writers
With technological advances disrupting and transforming health systems across the world, RMIT Online and the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) will deliver a suite of groundbreaking courses in digitally-enabled healthcare to enhance industry-led innovation and ensure Australia continues to be a global leader in delivery of best practice care.
As increased demand and the COVID-19 pandemic put health systems worldwide under pressure, the need to adopt technologies that deliver better patient care and curb health costs has become critical.
Wearable sensors to monitor chronic conditions, Artificial Intelligence (AI) assistance in detecting cancer earlier, and algorithms that assess the risk of diabetes are among the advancements that can be enabled by digital health technologies. They also allow patients to be treated closer to home, with a greater range of telehealth services and the capacity to perform treatments like dialysis in-home.
The three courses to be delivered under this project address the in-demand skills required to respond to the fast-moving pace of technology in healthcare and to ensure Australia’s hospitals and its health workforce can continue to deliver high quality care in new and improved ways.
Trials in digitally-enabled healthcare have found significant scope for digital health practices to both improve patient outcomes and lessen loads on service providers. A CSIRO trial of telehealth monitoring for patients with chronic conditions showed a 53 percent reduction in the number of hospital admissions and a 40 percent reduction in mortality, with the Australian Digital Health Agency identifying the need to embed digital practices in healthcare workforce training as crucial.
Healthcare leaders from across Australia will embrace the opportunity to increase their capacity to shape the future of healthcare delivery.
Each course will be a blend of learning and coaching by industry mentors, delivered online and take just six weeks to complete – allowing participants to make an immediate impact in their own workplace and more broadly.
Other partners involved in the development of the courses are Queensland Health, Australia’s largest ehealth company Telstra Health, youth cancer organisation Canteen and RMIT’s Health Transformation Lab.
RMIT Online CEO Helen Souness said the courses represent a vital step forward in the delivery of healthcare training that will enhance patient care and unlock transformative capabilities in the growing sector.
“The healthcare sector employs more than one in 10 working Australians and is going to continue to grow, with another quarter of a million jobs being created between now and 2024.
“Currently
skills gaps in key areas like digital health, change management and remote patient
care are holding us back. These skills are critical to enable innovation and
transformation in the healthcare sector, so we need to address all three at
once.
“We have designed our courses with the understanding that people, not
technology, are at the core of effective healthcare and that new technologies
can improve outcomes and equity in access to care.”
Digital Health CRC will be the first CRC to combine forces with one of Australia’s leading technical universities to create industry-relevant micro-credentials.
“The pace of technological change is unrelenting, which means we need learning formats that enable healthcare professionals to adopt and adapt quickly,” Digital Health Education Manager, Dr Melanie Haines explained. “Micro-credentials are the perfect answer and we are pleased to not only be partnering with RMIT Online in the delivery of these courses, but to be sponsoring 70 places.
“These courses will equip Australia’s healthcare professionals and organisations with the capability to integrate technologies such as apps, wearables, internet-enabled devices, virtual/augmented reality, AI and data analytics to improve delivery of patient care.
“We hope following the success of this trial, we can expand opportunities for healthcare professionals to obtain digital health micro-credentials in the future.”
Queensland Health Acting Deputy Director-General and Chief Clinical Information Officer Professor Keith McNeil said it is imperative for industry to work with education to quickly upskill health workers in critical innovations happening across the sector.
“In
this environment, harnessing the capability for innovation to enhance patient
care, transform health delivery and preserve healthcare capacity while creating
better health and wellbeing outcomes is essential. Queensland Health is
pleased to partner with RMIT Online and DHCRC to be supporting the healthcare workforce
of today and into the future.”
The courses will be fully credentialed by RMIT University. Find out more about
RMIT Online at online.rmit.edu.au
Here is the link:
Aren’t we lucky to read such hype! If you believe what is said here 3 six week courses are enough to ‘revolutionise’ health care and benefits of such scale will flow that we will all be amazed!
If any of it were actually credible the changes would have long since been funded up to kazoo to harvest such glittering benefit. I wonder why it hasn’t? A tiny bit of exaggeration and a less than totally credible research are two possible reasons.
I suspect many who have invested a great deal more into their Digital Health education would be startled to find out how easy and quick it is to make such huge headway.
David.
3 comments:
Wow that must have been a gram driven workshop if ever there was one. I think the consistent misuse of COVID-19 as a marketing tool is a bit shallow. Tell me how does the emotive statements in the first paragraph related to the second paragraph? Those things are all independent of COVID-19. They risk diverting resources and attention from those who are actually tackling COVID under extreme conditions.
Must admit the link is difficult to find.
To be fair, micro-credentials are a decent way to justify staff spending some time building up some intensive hours on really useful and relevant skills, and getting something more valuable out of it than free lunches and a participation certificate. Six weeks is about how long your average one-semester degree subject takes in intensive mode and these micro-creds mean that the employee can put the qual towards a higher degree. Digital moves pretty fast these days, by the time you do a two year postgrad diploma, everything you learned in first semester is obsolete. At least these courses can be put to use in the workplace straight away, plus they are sponsored so you can knock some dollars off your expensive postgrad course. And isn't everything pandemic this year? We're even using it to dictate our email sigs: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200604-whats-the-right-way-to-sign-off-emails-during-coronavirus
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