Weaving the ‘e's together

Abstract

This paper reviews the ways that the many threads and systems involved in computer-mediated and -supported healthcare education can be woven together by using educational interoperability standards and specifications. By taking a non-technical perspective the author considers the ways that these technologies impact on teaching and learning and how the educational landscape is changing in healthcare education as a whole.

Notes

Notes

[1] ISO (International Standards Organization) (http://www.iso.org).

[2] ANSI (American National Standards Institute) (http://www.ansi.org).

[3] IMS Global Learning Consortium has developed a number of widely adopted specifications including content packaging, learner information profile, e-portfolio and question & test (http://www.imsglobal.org).

[4] ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) is most notable for its development of SCORM (http://www.adlnet.org).

[5] IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.) is particularly notable for having published the Learning Object Metadata standard (LOM) (http://www.ieee.org).

[6] The e-Framework is a major international project to codify and unite ways of integrating the many aspects of educational systems interoperability (http://www.e-framework.org).

[7] For more on Web 2.0 see the following website (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2).

[8] MedBiquitous's mission is ‘To advance healthcare education through technology standards that promote professional competence, collaboration, and better patient care’ (http://www.medbiq.org).

[9] Hospital Information System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_information_system).

[10] Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picture_archiving_and_communication_system).

[11] Electronic Health Records (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HER).

[12] ‘HL7 is an international community of healthcare subject matter experts and information scientists collaborating to create standards for the exchange, management and integration of electronic healthcare information’. RIM is the reference implementation model of HL7 (see http://www.hl7.org).

[13] MeSH (Medical Sub Headings) is a controlled medical vocabulary developed by the National Library of Medicine in the US and originally intended for cataloguing books and other literature (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html). SNOMED is another US-based medical nomenclature system (http://www.snomed.org).

[14] IVIMEDS—a subscription-based international collaboration to provide e-learning materials and support for medical education (http://www.ivimeds.org).

[15] IVINURS—based on the IVIMEDS approach, a subscription-based international collaboration to provide e-learning materials and support for nursing education (http://www.ivinurs.org).

[16] The Health Education Assets Library is a free repository of healthcare education resources (see http://www.healcentral.org).

[17] MedEdPortal is a repository/catalogue of educational resources from the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) (http://www.aamc.org/mededportal).

[18] See for example the following website (http://www.expertpatients.nhs.uk).