Demystifying Artificial Intelligence for Health Care Professionals: Continuing Professional Development as an Agent of Transformation Leading to Artificial Intelligence-Augmented Practice.

ABSTRACT: The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming society; yet, the education of health care providers in this field is lagging. In health care, where AI promises to facilitate diagnostic accuracy, and allow for personalized treatment, bridging the knowledge and skill gaps for providers becomes vital. This article explores the challenges of AI education, such as the emergence of self-proclaimed experts during the pandemic, and the need for comprehensive training in AI language, mechanics, and ethics. It advocates for a new breed of health care professionals who are both practitioners and informaticians, who are capable through initial training or through continuing professional development of harnessing AI's potential. Interdisciplinary collaboration, ongoing education, and incentives are proposed to ensure health care benefits from AI's trajectory. This perspective article explores the hurdles and the imperative of creating educational programming designed specifically to help health care professionals augment their practice with AI.

Practices, knowledge, and attitudes about lithium treatment: Results of online surveys completed by clinicians and lithium-treated patients.

BACKGROUND: Lithium remains the gold-standard medication for acute and prophylactic treatment of bipolar disorder. Understanding clinicians' practices and patients' experiences, knowledge and attitudes about lithium may improve its clinical use. METHODS: Online anonymous surveys collected information about clinician's practices and level of confidence in managing lithium and patients' experiences with lithium treatment and information received about benefits and side effects. Knowledge and attitudes regarding lithium were assessed with the Lithium Knowledge Test (LKT) and the Lithium Attitudes Questionnaire (LAQ). RESULTS: Among 201 clinicians, 64.2% endorsed often treating patients with lithium and reported high levels of confidence in assessing and managing lithium. Practices concerning clinical indications, drug titration, and serum levels were guideline-concordant, but compliance with monitoring recommendations was less frequent. Practitioners were interested in receiving more education about lithium. The patients' survey recruited 219 participants with 70.3% being current lithium users. Most patients (68%) found lithium helpful and 71% reported experiencing any kind of side effect. Most responders did not receive information about side effects or other benefits of lithium. Patients with higher scores on the LKT were more likely to have positive attitudes about lithium. LIMITATIONS: Cross-sectional design with predominantly English-speaking participants from Brazil and North America. CONCLUSIONS: There is a discrepancy between guidelines, clinician confidence and knowledge of lithium use and practice. A deeper understanding of how to monitor, prevent and manage long-term side effects and which patients are most likely to benefit from lithium may narrow the gap between knowledge and use.

Professional Development in Health Sciences: Scoping Review on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Indigeneity, and Accessibility Interventions.

INTRODUCTION: Equity, diversity, inclusion, indigeneity, and accessibility (EDIIA) are critical considerations in the formation of professional development (PD) programs for health care workers. Improving EDIIA competency in health care serves to enhance patient health, staff confidence and well-being, delivery of care, and the broader health care system. There is a gap in the literature as to the efficacy of EDIIA-based PD programs and their individual components. The present article will review available quantitative data pertaining to EDIIA-based PD programs for health care workers as well as their effectiveness. METHOD: A scoping review of articles published in the EBSCOhost, MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL databases was performed. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement. RESULTS: A total of 14,316 references were identified with 361 reaching full-text review. A final 36 articles were included in the scoping review with 6552 total participants (72.9% women; 26.9% men; 0.2% nonbinary). EDIIA-based PD interventions were developed around the topics of culture (n = 22), gender (n = 11), sexual orientation (n = 9), indigeneity (n = 6), race (n = 6), ableism (n = 1), and ageism (n = 1). DISCUSSION: Despite an increased interest in developing EDIIA-based PD curricula for health care workers, there are glaring disparities in the quality of care received by marginalized and equity-seeking populations. The present scoping review delineated key features which were associated with increased quantitative efficacy of EDIIA-based PD training programs. Future work should focus on large-scale implementation and evaluation of these interventions across health care sectors and levels of training.

Evaluation of a Virtual Team-Based Project Designed to Improve Chronic Wound Patient Care in Ontario, Canada.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes Ontario Skin and Wound Care project, a virtual team-based endeavor designed to improve the care of patients with chronic wounds. METHODS: The study team conducted phone interviews with healthcare professionals (n = 8) regarding their patients (n = 10). The management recommendations were grouped, and the study participants questioned concerning the implementation of the recommendations. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the transcripts were analyzed for common themes. The Queen's University Research Ethics Board approved this study. RESULTS: Interviews documented improvement in 50% of patients; the other half of the patients did not improve because of patient- and healthcare-system barriers. Three of five nonhealing patients were nonadherent regarding compression, and only one of six suggested biopsies were carried out. The investigators noted three primary reasons for the lack of recommendation implementation: (1) could not obtain a diagnostic procedure, (2) lack of a diagnosis, and (3) patient was reluctant to make a lifestyle change. Major themes included problems in care coordination and suboptimal patient and provider education, along with other obstacles to management. CONCLUSIONS: Participants stated that the project provided a beneficial learning experience. The findings highlighted a lack of integrated and coordinated interprofessional chronic wound care.

Reimagining Bias: Making Strange With Disclosure.

ABSTRACT: Academic presentations in health professions continuing professional development (CPD) often begin with a declaration of real or potential conflicts utilizing a three-slide template or a similar standardized display. These declarations are required in some constituencies. The three-slide template and similar protocols exist to assure learners that the content that follows has been screened, is notionally bias free, and without financial or other influence that might negatively affect health provider behavior. We suggest that there is a potential problem with this type of process that typically focusses in on a narrow definition of conflict of interest. There is the possibility that it does little to confront the issue that bias is a much larger concept and that many forms of bias beyond financial conflict of interest can have devastating effects on patient care and the health of communities. In this article, we hope to open a dialogue around this issue by "making the familiar strange," by asking education organizers and providers to question these standard disclosures. We argue that other forms of bias, arising from the perspectives of the presenter, can also potentially change provider behavior. Implicit biases, for example, affect relationships with patients and can lead to negative health outcomes. We propose that CPD reimagine the process of disclosure of conflicts of interest. We seek to expand reflection on, and disclosure of, perspectives and biases that could affect CPD learners as one dimension of harnessing the power of education to decrease structural inequities.

Leader strategies for motivating innovation in individuals: a systematic review.

Innovation is a topic of intense interest and is seen as key to confronting the vast majority of issues facing humanity. To consolidate the knowledge about approaches promoting innovation, this study conducted a systematic review integrating an all-database (n = 375) search through EBSCOhost completed on April 6th, 2019 in addition to search engine use. Three hundred three studies were full-text reviewed yielding 82 final studies eligible for the inclusion in findings extraction. The findings were synthesized and then organized into the Expectancy-value-cost (EVC) motivation framework to isolate promotive and hindering factors. It is clear that there is an unbalanced primacy in the innovation literature in favor of business and corporate settings with very little representation from the arts or social justice sectors. There is also a common trend of using surveys of individuals in organizations within a single discipline, while interviews are rare. The paucity of studying costs of innovation in the literature is symptomatic of the primarily positive psychology approach taken by studies, rather than a framework like EVC which also considers detractive factors like costs. Numerous studies provide support for the notion that more internal motivations like intrinsic (e.g., interest) and attainment (e.g., importance, fulfillment) were more influential than external motivators like rewards as targets of strategies. Leaders should focus, whenever possible, on topics that engaged curiosity, interest, and satisfaction and, if they choose to use rewards, should focus their strategies to give related rewards; otherwise, they risk sundering the internal motivation to innovate for already interested workers.