As you would imagine I see all sorts of publications in the Digital Health area. An example it this.
Lifelong learning key to our digital health future
Nicole Bittar
Contributor
However, there is one fundamental challenge that is often overlooked in the push to innovate and commercialise new technologies; that is the need to train and upskill the current and future workforce who will be critical to the success of this new way of delivering patient care.
In terms of the digital health evolution, this challenge is critical for the Digital Health CRC (DHCRC) which plays an important advocacy role in digital health — particularly in educational upskilling.
“Because technology is moving so quickly, we need to be able to upskill people in parallel (with traditional skills), and find effective new ways of doing that,” said DHCRC education manager Dr Melanie Haines.
“One way to look at it is as a spectrum where your learning happens progressively throughout your career. It traditionally starts with formal education at university, but given the speed of change and rapid take-up of technology, you’re not just going to learn once; you’re continuing to learn across your entire career.”
In this context, digital upskilling will fall on the health sector, employers, and employees themselves to adopt a mindset of lifelong learning, in order to fully embrace the opportunities presented in digital health.
“Digital upskilling means enabling or empowering the development of a mindset where technology augments (traditional) practices. It’s not just a digital replacement of a previously manual task, but a broadening of these capabilities,” said the DHCRC research director Dr Clare Morgan.
“To this end, the DHCRC is supporting research into how clinicians can adopt the behavioural change that’s required to embrace technology and how clinicians change when they’re challenged by data.
“It’s not a sensible approach to invest in implementing new technologies if the people on the ground don’t have the skills to realise the full potential of these applications.”
Sustainable learning that moves with the times
A key pillar of the program of activity at DHCRC is to invest in upskilling and educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.
The DHCRC oversees the delivery of a range of graduate and internship training programs which include two recently established initiatives: a clinical fellowship with the Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH) and a micro-credentials program at RMIT University.
The fellowship offered by the DHCRC is a global first, said Dr Haines — and the lack of established career pathways in digital health was the catalyst for the program.
“The DHCRC fills an important gap by providing a clinical fellowship that allows for a nationally recognised digital program in clinical health,” she said.
“For clinicians that want to be a recognised expert in digital health, we’ve established a fellowship program where you can effectively work towards that vocation.”
Essentially, this digital overlay improves their specialty areas.
“In the past, people had to choose between whether they were going to specialise in their area or specialise in digital health,” Dr Haines said.
“Recognition for both sides of the equation is proving paramount to the long-term results of augmenting the digital health learning to their specialty areas.”
Micro method offers a world of change
Another innovative educational facet being offered by DHCRC is a micro-learning pilot (the style of which is based upon research conducted by the Harvard Business Review).
Enabled via DigiTech, the pilot is accessible on mobile devices to encompass bite-sized (five minutes) learning on a daily basis. This suits not only the continual uptake of absorbing new information, but also fits into the often-frenetic lifestyle of clinicians.
More is found at this link::
https://www.innovationaus.com/lifelong-learning-key-to-our-digital-health-future/
You can read about the CRC here:
I really believe you need to read material of this with a level of scepticism – especially when in the first paragraph there is a claim that the “Digital Health CRC is at the forefront of the most pressing healthcare challenges facing society today.” It could just be that Climate Change and Cancer are a trifle more pressing!
As you read on there is lots of other material which it seems to me makes rather exaggerated claims or – as the end – tries to somehow link the use of telehealth in the pandemic to DHCRC work!
The CRC would do better to ‘under promise and overdeliver’ I reckon!
What do you think?
David.
1 comment:
"It could just be that Climate Change and Cancer are a trifle more pressing"
As are antibiotic resistant bacteria, obesity, diabetes, prescription drug overuse etc etc.
“Digital Health CRC is at the forefront of the most pressing healthcare challenges facing society today.” is marketing exaggeration and hyperbole, which tells the discerning a lot about the organisation.
Can't say I'm impressed.
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