Welcome to this new issue of IPP and ‘warm’ greetings from Qatar. It is a country developing at a very fast pace and striving to build its society on strong educational foundations. Reflection is an important component of adult learning and in that domain Qatar has greatly benefited from the good, as well as not so good experiences from its neighbouring nations.
Although financial wealth can buy you all the latest gadgets, their use does not necessarily guarantee the provision of high quality or effective education, nor is it always necessary to achieve set learning objectives.
A report addressed to commissioners and providers of health and social care education was published last year in the UK by the Department of Health (2011). Its focus was to present a framework providing guidance to help deliver high quality, cost–effective education, training and continuous development to the workforce through the use of technology. This Framework for Technology Enhanced Learning identifies six key principles regarding the use of technology as part of a learning solution (Department of Health, 2011). These principles have been derived for the benefit of patients to ensure that the education provided to the healthcare workforce improves patient outcomes, safety, and experience. The recommendations of the framework are that technology enhanced learning should:
The framework, in line with the white paper From equity to excellence: Liberating the NHS (Department of Health 2010), recognises the value of local ownership and diversity, and highlights the benefits of appropriate cooperation and collaboration where this can deliver more cost–effective solutions than fragmented local provision. In many instances, this means making effective use of existing resources and know-how. This is of particular significance for developing countries. Other countries such as Australia, the United States, and France have also given serious considerations in terms of making recommendations regarding the adoption of the latest training approaches for the initial and ongoing education of healthcare professionals (Granry and Moll, 2012; Health Workforce Australia, 2012) or even trying to pass legislation promoting innovative training approaches (Advancement In Medical Simulation (AIMS), 2012).
New American legislation would aim to extend the benefits of advanced medical simulation technology to the civilian healthcare system through the deployment of simulation technologies and the incorporation of such technologies and equipment into the education and training protocols of all healthcare professionals. In Australia, the interest in seeing an increased and consistent use of simulated learning modalities to develop clinical skills and competencies across all healthcare professions has been centrally supported as a fully funded governmental initiative since early 2011 and covers capital establishment, recurrent funding, and the training of simulation educators and technicians.
It is a visionary action with an expected medium–term return on investment through enhanced healthcare workforce capacity building, expected improved patient care which is also linked to reduced patient care cost (Cohen et al, 2010).
As valuable guidelines may be, being aware of them is certainly not sufficient and this is where some form of auditing process adds value by ensuring guidelines are appropriately interpreted and followed. Since 2010 the Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) has established an accreditation process for simulation programs whose standards are based around accepted current best practice simulation education principles, across all modalities or forms of simulation practice (Society for Simulation in Healthcare, 2012).
Going through an accreditation process for real or simply as a benchmarking exercise may be tedious, but certainly adds value and is particularly useful for succession planning as documentation of adopted processes and standards is a key element.
Although pre-hospital care providers are well accustomed with scenarios and the rehearsal of protocols, some nuances exist in the educational approach, therefore, it is highly recommended to consider these recent initiatives and reports. As recommended in some of these documents, it is not about investing more in educational resources and technology, but making better use of them by adopting sound educational principles, collaborating with others, and ensuring a quality process.
This, of course, relies on having the right people facilitating the learning experiences and making sure training is made compulsory across the board to ensure standardisation of practice and monitor levels of competence in various domains (cognitive, technical, and behavioural). Consideration of the SSH accreditation standards is also highly recommended especially for institutions wanting to develop their program on strong foundation recommended by a council constituted of experienced members from a varied range of educational and clinical domains.