Which Priorities Should Guide Design of Online Health Professions Capability-Based Curricula?

Inquiry-based learning instructional design methods support online health professions capability-based curricula. This article proposes which instructional design priorities should guide development of inclusive, accessible online curricula and learning experiences.

An equitable and sustainable community of practice framework to address the use of artificial intelligence for global health workforce training.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and data science models may hold potential for enabling an understanding of global health inequities and support decision-making related toward possible interventions. However, AI inputs should not perpetuate the biases and structural issues within our global societies that have created various health inequities. We need AI to be able to 'see' the full context of what it is meant to learn. AI trained with biased data produces biased outputs and providing health workforce training with such outputs further contributes to the buildup of biases and structural inequities. The accelerating and intricately evolving technology and digitalization will influence the education and practice of health care workers. Before we invest in utilizing AI in health workforce training globally, it is important to make sure that multiple stakeholders from the global arena are included in the conversation to address the need for training in 'AI and the role of AI in training'. This is a daunting task for any one entity and a multi-sectorial interactions and solutions are needed. We believe that partnerships among various national, regional, and global stakeholders involved directly or indirectly with health workforce training ranging to name a few, from public health & clinical science training institutions, computer science, learning design, data science, technology companies, social scientists, law, and AI ethicists, need to be developed in ways that enable the formation of an equitable and sustainable Communities of Practice (CoP) to address the use of AI for global health workforce training. This paper has laid out a framework for such CoP.

Using Technology to Enhance Teaching of Patient-Centered Interviewing for Early Medical Students.

INTRODUCTION: Effective strategies for teaching communication skills to health professions students are needed. This article describes the design and evaluation of immersive and interactive video simulations for medical students to practice basic communication skills. METHODS: Three simulations were developed, focusing on patient-centered interviewing techniques such as using open-ended questions, reflections, and empathic responses while assessing a patient's history of present illness. First-year medical students were randomized to simulation or education-as-usual arms. Students in the simulation arm were given access to three interactive video simulations developed using Articulate Storyline, an e-learning authoring tool, to practice and receive feedback on patient-centered interviewing techniques to prepare for their Observed Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Trained raters evaluated videos of two OSCE cases for each participant to assess specific communication skills used during the history of present illness component of the interview. RESULTS: Eighty-seven percent of the students in the simulation arm interacted with at least one simulation during the history of present illness. For both OSCE cases, students in the simulation arm asked significantly more open-ended questions. Students in the simulation arm asked significantly fewer closed-ended questions and offered significantly more empathic responses in one OSCE case. No differences were found for reflections. Students reported that the simulations helped improve their communication skills. CONCLUSION: The use of interactive video simulations was found to be feasible to incorporate into the curriculum and was appealing to students. In addition, students in the simulation arm displayed more behaviors consistent with the patient-centered interviewing model practiced in the simulations. Continued development and research are warranted.

A systems approach to implementation of eLearning in medical education: five MEPI schools' journeys.

How should eLearning be implemented in resource-constrained settings? The introduction of eLearning at four African medical schools and one school of pharmacy, all part of the Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) eLearning Technical Working Group, highlighted the need for five factors essential for successful and sustainable implementation: institutional support; faculty engagement; student engagement; technical expertise; and infrastructure and support systems. All five MEPI schools reported strengthening technical expertise, infrastructure, and support systems; four schools indicated that they were also successful in developing student engagement; and three reported making good progress in building institutional support. Faculty engagement was the one core component that all five schools needed to enhance.

Building communities of practice: MEPI creates a commons.

The Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) supports medical education capacity development, retention, and research in Sub-Saharan African institutions. Today, MEPI comprises more than 40 medical schools in Africa and 20 in the United States. Since 2011, the MEPI Coordinating Center, working with the MEPI schools and the U.S. government, has laid the groundwork and served as a catalyst for the creation and development of MEPI "communities of practice" (CoPs). These CoPs encompass seven components, some of which are virtual while others are tangible. They include technical working groups, principal investigator site visit exchanges, an annual symposium, a MEPI journal supplement, the MEPI Web site, newsletters, and webinars. Despite certain challenges and the question of sustainability, the presence within the MEPI network of an organization focused on promoting group consciousness and facilitating collaborative projects is an asset that is likely to continue to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.

E-learning in medical education in resource constrained low- and middle-income countries.

BACKGROUND: In the face of severe faculty shortages in resource-constrained countries, medical schools look to e-learning for improved access to medical education. This paper summarizes the literature on e-learning in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), and presents the spectrum of tools and strategies used. METHODS: Researchers reviewed literature using terms related to e-learning and pre-service education of health professionals in LMIC. Search terms were connected using the Boolean Operators "AND" and "OR" to capture all relevant article suggestions. Using standard decision criteria, reviewers narrowed the article suggestions to a final 124 relevant articles. RESULTS: Of the relevant articles found, most referred to e-learning in Brazil (14 articles), India (14), Egypt (10) and South Africa (10). While e-learning has been used by a variety of health workers in LMICs, the majority (58%) reported on physician training, while 24% focused on nursing, pharmacy and dentistry training. Although reasons for investing in e-learning varied, expanded access to education was at the core of e-learning implementation which included providing supplementary tools to support faculty in their teaching, expanding the pool of faculty by connecting to partner and/or community teaching sites, and sharing of digital resources for use by students. E-learning in medical education takes many forms. Blended learning approaches were the most common methodology presented (49 articles) of which computer-assisted learning (CAL) comprised the majority (45 articles). Other approaches included simulations and the use of multimedia software (20 articles), web-based learning (14 articles), and eTutor/eMentor programs (3 articles). Of the 69 articles that evaluated the effectiveness of e-learning tools, 35 studies compared outcomes between e-learning and other approaches, while 34 studies qualitatively analyzed student and faculty attitudes toward e-learning modalities. CONCLUSIONS: E-learning in medical education is a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. Utilizing e-learning can result in greater educational opportunities for students while simultaneously enhancing faculty effectiveness and efficiency. However, this potential of e-learning assumes a certain level of institutional readiness in human and infrastructural resources that is not always present in LMICs. Institutional readiness for e-learning adoption ensures the alignment of new tools to the educational and economic context.