Feasibility of combining e-health for patients with e-learning for students using synchronous technologies

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Educational Technology
• Digital Learning Environments

Background:

• While asynchronous e-learning is established in nursing, synchronous methods are less explored but may offer benefits in efficiency and patient/student engagement.
• Synchronous e-learning, mimicking face-to-face interaction, could be more suitable for patients and accelerate e-learning development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate information and communication technologies (ICT) for a common synchronous e-learning environment.
• To assess the feasibility and acceptability of different synchronous technologies for involving academic staff, students, and patients.

Main Methods:

• Evaluation of three synchronous technologies: satellite interactive television (TV), Internet videoconferencing, and webcasting.
• Feasibility studies included 'TV-style' panel discussions, seminars with viewer interaction, inter-site research meetings, user surveys, and literature reviews.

Main Results:

• Satellite TV and videoconferencing faced accessibility limitations and high costs, though videoconferencing is suitable for cross-site research meetings.
• Webcasting demonstrated broad accessibility and feasibility for delivering synchronous interactive health content to large audiences.
• Engaging academic staff and students in mixed patient-professional synchronous sessions proved challenging, with potential barriers including timetabling and student concerns.

Conclusions:

• Webcasting emerged as the most acceptable synchronous method for creating a shared e-learning environment, addressing accessibility issues of other technologies.
• The identified feasible synchronous method paves the way for investigating the hypothesized benefits of combined e-health and e-learning for staff, students, and patients.