The use of the Internet and information technology to facilitate teaching evidence based practice - a case study

The use of Internet and information technology for teaching nurses and other health professionals has been shown to improve learning outcomes, learners' satisfaction and the learner-learner and learner-teacher interactions. Two recent government white pa pers emphasised the central role of evidence based practice as the key component for nurses to deliver quality care to their patients, and basic IT and Internet competencies are also essential for evidence based practice. This paper reports the experience of the introduction of a dedicated web site, the Internet and information technology to augment a face-to-face Master's unit in evidence based practice. The main objective of the unit is to enable students to apply the principles of evidence based practice to their daily professional practice. The organisation of this module and the ways these new technologies were exploited are described. A brief evaluation of this module is presented: the unit was reasonably well received by the students. The practical difficulties of introducing such technologies by individual tutors and ensuring that students have adequate access to computers are discussed.