Using e-learning to educate health professionals in the management of children

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Using e-learning to educate health professionals
in the management of childrens pain.

• Bernadette Burns Senior Lecturer
• Faculty of Health Social Care
• University of Salford
• Denise Jonas Lecturer/practitioner in
  Childrens Pain Management
• Faculty of Health Social Care
• University of Salford CMMC NHS Trust

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Rationale

• The majority of health professionals accessing
  post qualifying nursing courses are female,
  working full-time with significant family
  commitments.
• These health professionals experience difficulty
  accessing further education due to increased
  patient workload, national shortage of nurses
  reduction in budgets and other personal
  commitments. (Cook et al 2004, Honey 2004)
• Due to these issues many
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  higher
  educational institutes are experiencing
  difficulties with recruitment and retention

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Stakeholders

• Recent development of a market economy in higher
  education has resulted in the need to tailor our
  product to the customers namely students,
  employers and commissioning bodies. (Janes
  2006)
• There is increased expectation from government,
  stakeholders and employers that e-learning is a
  normal part of life-long learning

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Educational drivers for childrens pain
management

• Inadequate nursing knowledge related to pain
  continues to be documented (Seers et al 2006)
• Childrens National Service Framework emphasises
  the importance of education in all aspects of
  childrens pain management (DOH 2003).
• Governments around the world affirm that children
  have the right to the best pain management
  possible and put mechanisms in place to ensure
  that research findings are a feature of daily
  practice. (Finley et al 2005)
• Health care professionals are the key 24 hour
  providers of acute pain management in hospital
  settings (Coulling 2005)

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The Educational Vision

• Implementation of the Knowledge Skills Framework
  has accelerated the demand for health
  professionals to have up-to date knowledge and
  skills related to their role
• (DOH 2004).
• Augmented transition within the nursing context
  towards lifelong learning and a demand for
  continuous professional development (CPD).
• NHS becomes more reliant on Information
  Technology (IT) as a tool for communication and
  education
• A need to develop generic IT skills amongst
  qualified health professionals to support their
  short term academic studies but also for their
  long term health careers.

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Progressing the vision

• Faculty first healthcare e-learning module
• Link with IT support division
• HFCE funding
• Blended e-learning
• Expertise of module team

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Redesign module content

• The revised module content aimed to develop the
  practitioners knowledge base and decision making
  skills surrounding their clinical competency when
  caring for children in pain whist working
  collaboratively
• When moving over to e-learning tutors needed to
  develop skills in using on-line content and
  change from the more traditional face-to-face
  role
• (Armitage OLeary 2003, Wharrad et al 2005).
• Yet our experiences reflected the findings of
  Cook et al (2004) who found that staff were often
  expected to develop skills with little or no
  experience of what was needed.
• Learning outcomes embraced IT

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Module content

• Students accessing the module would be
  representative of many different areas of the
  health service.
• Core elements of content
• A range of on-line content to enable flexibility
  of choice synonymous to the students practice
  area.
• On-line sessions would include signposting to
  useful websites, embedded research articles,
  video media and Nuggets

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VLE site design

• Speechi
• Course genie
• Nuggets
• Video streaming
• Consent for video and internet resources

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Going Live

• IT support annual leave
• NHS firewalls
• Limited IT skills and difficulties performing
  basic IT tasks
• Computer hardware
• Student engagement

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Sept 2006 cohort

• 18 students enrolled on module
• 9 single module students
• one student returned to nursing course previous
  year no theoretical study for last 12 years.
• Students from variety of locations, especially
  one flew in from Norfolk.

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Student evaluations theoretical content

• Lots of information and links to articles also
  module leaders frequently put notices on
  blackboard
• Lecturers experts in the field and still
  practicing nurses
• I liked that each weekly session was different
  and covered the topic thoroughly
• Teaching packages were great with plenty of
  reference articles

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Student evaluations - accessibility

• Needed no child care
• Online - not having to travel to Manchester every
  week.
• Distance learning is a terrific idea for a busy
  working single mum like myself.
• That you could complete module on-line rather
  than travel to university every week.

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Student evaluations key skills

• . taught me computer skills
• Easy to access university blackboard as I did not
  have many computer skills
• Being able to do work at your own pace.
• Learning from home, managing the time better to
  access teaching packages when I needed

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Student evaluations - Tutor support

• Even though e-learning teacher support was
  excellent and you were able to access teachers
  when needed.
• I appreciated being able to contact tutors at any
  time useful
• Tutors have been very supportive they have
  communicated using personal and university
  emails, they have responded to all questions
  asked.

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Student evaluations dislike isolation

• I do not enjoy e-learning and there was little
  group participation via blackboard prefer group
  discussions in classroom setting
• Lack of interaction with other members of the
  group
• Not a lot of contact with other people
• Sometime through e-learning didnt see the group
  enough

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Student evaluations independent learning

• Open learning need to be strict with self, hard
  when get home and get interruptions
• Some sessions were hard to understand especially
  physiology of pain
• Found it hard to do work as no set day in college
  found myself doing it late at night when my son
  was in bed.

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No study time allocated by my manager

• Lack of time to work on the course was the
  greatest barrier
• Atack Rankin (2002)
• Major issues with lack of time
• Mason Wheller (2002)
• 40 withdrawal due to increased pressure of work
• Jones et al (2004)
• 60 employees have difficulty finding time to
  access online courses.
• Griffiths (2002)

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However.You can never satisfy some people

• Disliked the Parking problems !

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Changes

• Pre-registration information
• On-line registration
• On-line assessment
• Discussion board
• Develop core content and expand choice/options

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Conclusion

• Frustrating extremely time consuming
• Working by trial and error
• Not all students like it
• However
• Suitable medium for post qualifying working
  health professionals
• Hopefully continue to attract increased student
  numbers
• We have become IT experts as well as some
  students!
• Future
• Aim to be fully online in order for module to be
  accessed by wider audience