The Future of E-Learning in Health Care Settings for Developing Countries
E-Learning has been defined as any education intervention that is electronically facilitated over the internet [1], this can substitute or complement the traditional means of physical interaction with face-to-face classroom format. E-learning has a major role in strengthening the healthcare system by providing medical education for better service delivery [2]. As the struggle to increase the number of health workers continues for the growing populations in developing countries, where only about 6000 medical doctors graduate every year in sub-Saharan Africa which has about one billion people from the 49 nations [2], efforts to use existing technology resources like smartphones, tablets, and computers remains under-utilized. This is due to the lack of resources like affordable and reliable internet access and the availability of platforms with the necessary material and content to relay the necessary information.
By nature, before the healthcare professionals graduate and go out to practice in the field, they are required to go through rigorous education and training. The fact that the medical field changes so rapidly, a study by the World Health Organization found that when simulations were involved, e-learning was just as effective as traditional training methods for healthcare professionals [3]. As of 2018, the e-learning revolution in low-resource countries has not yet taken off, and the potential of e-learning in supporting the advancement of health training is still unknown [2]. Some studies have shown no major difference between e-learning and the traditional means on the effectiveness of patient outcomes despite growth in the world of technology and telemedicine being one of the fastest-growing areas in the field of healthcare information technology which offers a lot of data [4]. Healthcare professional education is expensive, developing countries with limited budgets and with resource limitations could utilize e-learning as a means of educating healthcare professionals as the costs are more likely to fall fast in the future as technology grows. Here, providers and consumers can ensure maximum value for money and resources from any investment in e-learning that would otherwise have been under-utilized if face-to-face education was used. With e-learning platforms, resources can simultaneously be shared among different healthcare personnel and/or institutions. E-learning will also become more adaptive in the future and so will deliver educational content based on learners’ exact needs. Already in its short history, e-learning has undergone a number of seismic changes. To cite one example, its delivery has evolved from simple, passive text-based learning resources to interactive, multimedia, and social learning resources. If the pace of change has been as rapid as this over the past number of years, then it is definitely worth considering what changes might happen in the future [5]. COVID-19 has changed the world, and among the changes include the way people and business interact, major operations were switched from physical to electronic as workers and client’s access most if not all resources remotely to reduce on the human-to-human contact. E-learning has proved to be beneficial when it comes to reaching remote audiences [6]. As patients and healthcare providers stay isolated, telehealth and e-learning have become major tools for service delivery where healthcare workers have access to online up-to-date material and courses, online meetings, and recordings for those with crazy work schedules to enable them to catch up with updates. Developing countries can also benefit from this as patients and healthcare providers save unnecessary time, money and travels to hospitals by utilizing telehealth and e-learning services where for example, a simple message with an image can be sent by a patient to a health worker for diagnosis, prescriptions or even accessing results of previous check-ups online and accessing health-related material online respectively which can improve service delivery.
References
1. Vaona, A., et al., E‐learning for health professionals. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2018(1).
2. Bartelt, S., et al., E-Learning for Medical Education in Sub-Saharan Africa and Low-Resource Settings: Viewpoint. Journal of medical Internet research, 2019. 21(1): p. e12449-e12449.
3. Fayad, A. Med School Goes Digital: The Future of eLearning in Healthcare. 2015 [cited 2020; Available from: https://elmlearning.com/med-school-goes-digital-the-future-of-elearning-in-healthcare/.
4. Hauck, W., Online versus Traditional Face-to-Face Learning in a Large Introductory Course. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 2006.
5. Walsh, K., The future of e-learning in healthcare professional education: some possible directions. Commentary. Ann Ist Super Sanita, 2014. 50(4): p. 309-10.
6. Ayers, R. How eLearning Is The Future Of Health Education. 2020; Available from: https://elearningindustry.com/how-elearning-is-health-education-future.
Article by: Ausse Kalega,
Health Informatician,
Pearl Health Informatics Consult, Uganda.
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