Integrating e-Learning into the workplace

Abstract The significance of e-Learning and knowledge management at the workplace cannot be overemphasized. With the rapid change in all types of working environments, especially medical and healthcare environments, there is a constant need to rapidly train and retrain people in new technologies, products, and services found within the environment. There is also a constant and unrelenting need for appropriate management and leveraging of the knowledge base so that it is readily available and accessible to all stakeholders within the workplace environment. In addition, within the medical and healthcare setting, certain other factors reinforce this need for constant refreshing, training, and retraining of its workers. These factors are outlined below: • Heightened expectations for improved quality of healthcare services from an increasingly aware and empowered public, • Acute shortage of doctors and other healthcare professionals (requiring “multitasking” efforts from individuals and thus “forced” learning of new skill sets), • Heterogeneous standards of healthcare as practised by medical practitioners necessitating policies designed to audit and streamline medical and healthcare practices as per enforcement of minimal credit points to be tied up to issuance/renewal of annual practicing certificates (APC), • Increased complexity of healthcare services, technologies and products, and, • Accelerated technological changes. Our TeleHealth Initiative intends to implement this integration into the healthcare setting workplace via the following applications, namely: • Just-in-time Continuing Medical Education (CME), which refers to significant and relevant information that can value-add to patient management at the appropriate time and appropriate segment of encounter, • Formal Distant Education (FDE), which refers to electronic courses delivered online resulting in award of certificates conferred by accredited academic institutions or agencies, • Modular Distance Learning (MDL), which refers to packaged learning modules designed to maintain competencies and to excel at relevant knowledge and skills which are tied in to issuance/renewal of practising licenses of the healthcare professionals, and, • Personalised CME, which refers to knowledge, information, and skill sets pushed to healthcare professionals tailored to their areas of expertise, interest, and need. The solutions as outlined above will be delivered via Internet-based content accredited by relevant authorities. This paper describes our mission to integrate e-Learning into health-related settings and into the routine daily life of medical and healthcare professionals.