Innovate, Educate, Elevate: Empowering Tomorrow's Health Professionals Through a Contemporary Learning Module in Digital Transformation of Health.

This manuscript describes the conception and development of a novel, innovative digital health and informatics learning module designed specifically for entry-to-practice physiotherapy university programs. The design process involved consultation with stakeholders, alignment with contemporary digital health competency guidelines for health professional education, and educational design workshopping with faculty to ensure relevance and success. Key curriculum components include modules on health system transformation, design-thinking approaches, solution refinement and innovation pitching in the context of digital health. The subject intended learning outcomes (SILOs) were focused on digital health transformation, addressing the need for a curriculum on digital health transformation. This tertiary module aims to equip university graduates with essential knowledge and skills to thrive in a digitally enabled healthcare system by offering this framework for future health professional education in the digital age.

Towards a pedagogy for noticing: Piloting a novel intervention for health professions students.

Teaching students to 'notice' what is happening around them, to be more attuned to what is going on within themselves, and nurturing self-inquiry into one's practice is desirable yet difficult to achieve. We sought to teach the metacognitive skill of 'noticing' to pre-registration health professions students in the context of interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP). A three-part curriculum was designed: an e-module focused on 'noticing' in IPCP; a team-based workplace learning observation and interprofessional debrief; and a written reflective assignment. We found that students concentrated on the disciplinary content of IPCP in the assignments, which 'overshadowed' the metacognitive content. We learned that: we had underestimated the challenges of retrofitting new content into existing curricula; that we had not paid enough attention to students' perceptions about what they want to learn; and working with a large and diverse group of educators requires adequate preparation. The next iteration of this program will improve the constructive alignment between learning outcomes and assessments and provide better support for educators. In the future we will temper decisions to act quickly to implement curricular innovations. More broadly, we suggest that educational design that seeks to take account of qualitatively different but intersecting knowledge domains, such as IPCP and 'noticing', is worthy of further study.

Telephone based asthma management - financial and individual benefits.

METHODS: The authors calculated the cost of delivering telephone based asthma management compared to usual care. Self efficacy and quality of life were measured at recruitment, 6 months and 12 months. Participants were invited to comment on their experience of the telephone based intervention. RESULTS: The intervention was well accepted. At 12 months there was a clinically important improvement in mean quality of life in the intervention group not seen in the control group. Telephone based management costs were offset by reductions in the number of readmissions in the intervention group. DISCUSSION: Telephone based asthma management offers a well accepted, low cost yet potentially effective means of delivering asthma care.

A pilot study of telephone based asthma management.

BACKGROUND: Self management programs have been advocated for adults who have recently been admitted to hospital or have recently attended an emergency department because of asthma. A new telephone based approach has already been trialled for the management of a number of other chronic conditions. This study sought to determine the effect of a telephone based asthma management program for adults with asthma. METHODS: Adults with one or more previous admissions for asthma to either or both of two tertiary hospitals between 1 May 2001 and 30 November 2003 were invited to participate. All participants received one face-to-face session with an asthma educator. Participants were randomised to intervention (six telephone calls over 6 months) or control (usual care) groups. Measures of health care utilisation and morbidity were collected weekly for 12 months. RESULTS: Seventy-one adults (54 females) with a mean age of 36.2 years were recruited to the study. Twenty hospital re-admissions were recorded for the control group and one for the intervention group at 12 months. Re-admission was significantly associated with allocation to control group (p=0.05). The control group was significantly more likely to report being woken by asthma on more than half the nights of the week (p=0.03). DISCUSSION: Telephone based self management intervention results in clinically important reductions in hospital re-admission in adults previously hospitalised with asthma.

Self management beliefs--attitudes and behaviour of adults with severe life threatening asthma requiring an admission to hospital.

BACKGROUND: Adults who have had an admission for severe life threatening asthma are at high risk of future attacks or death. Optimal self management is the key to reducing this risk but relies on people recognising the severity of symptoms and engaging in specific health care behaviour. METHODS: We used a focus group to examine self management beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in five adults admitted to hospital for asthma. RESULTS: There were a number of themes. Patients delayed seeking medical attention until asthma symptoms were severe despite ownership of a peak expiratory flow meter, written plan, or experience of previous attack. DISCUSSION: Insight into the significance of the severity of symptoms and need to change self management behaviour in response to symptoms is key to reducing the risk of future attacks. The general practitioner has a key role in determining and addressing self management behaviour and attitudes that place patients at risk.