Health professions' education and practice: A commentary on transformation through the internet.

The Internet, in all of its forms and functions, is well on the way to becoming the most ubiquitous technology of the 21st century. It is changing the way the world does business, the way formal education is conducted, and the way humans interact with each other. The Internet already has become an invaluable tool for formal health education and for the delivery by health professionals of information, training, and education to their employees and patients. With new paradigms for health on the horizon, modem Internet technologies will transform health care practice and systems delivery. In this report, the authors focus attention on the use of distance learning/distance education technologies and their relationship to, and use in, the health professions.

Resourcing nursing education through collaboration.

The nursing shortage is also a nursing faculty shortage. The shortage of nurses can only be managed if the shortage of faculty is addressed. The profession needs creative and rigorous "research and development" strategies to secure sufficient educator resources across practice settings. Recent position statements of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the National League for Nursing on nursing education and the preparation of nurse educators recommend specific actions to meet these needs. The author calls for purposeful and creative collaboration between educators in academic and service settings to resource nursing education, now and in our future.