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Examining the Influence of E-Health Education on Professional Practice

  • Education & Training
  • Published:
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Abstract

e-Health is steadily integrating into modern health services, making significant changes in the way health services are traditionally delivered. To work in this new environment, healthcare workers are required to have new knowledge, skills and competencies specific to e-Health. The aim of this study was to understand the self-reported perceptions of graduates regarding the influence of an e-Health postgraduate program on their professional careers. In addition, this paper will provide an overview of the e-Health postgraduate program. All graduates from 2005 to 2015 were surveyed using an online questionnaire that consisted of a mixture of closed and open-ended questions. The number of participants in the study was 32. Response rate was 62%. The main motivating factors for studying e-Health were ‘relevance to current practice’ and ‘e-Health is the future’. The participants noted that the opportunity to ‘acquiring relevant knowledge’ and ‘having exposure’ were key benefits offered by the e-Health education program. The majority of graduates (n = 23, 72%) thought that the postgraduate e-Health program had an influence on their professional practice. A similar number of participants (n = 23, 72%) mentioned that they had worked in the field of e-Health since their graduation. Their professional roles mainly involved ‘implementation of e-Health in health service settings’ and the ‘use of e-Health in clinical practice’. While e-Health may be steadily integrating into modern health services, e-Health specific job opportunities are still relatively limited. e-Health workforce development must be given priority.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Online Health, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Building 33, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, QLD, 4102, Australia

    Sisira Edirippulige, Anthony C. Smith & Sumudu Wickramasinghe

  2. Centre for Clinical Research, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

    Nigel R. Armfield

Authors
  1. Sisira Edirippulige
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  2. Anthony C. Smith
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  3. Sumudu Wickramasinghe
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  4. Nigel R. Armfield
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Correspondence to Sisira Edirippulige.

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Conflict of interest

Sisira Edirippulige declares that he has no conflict of interest. Anthony Smith declares that he has no conflict of interest. Sumudu Wickramasinghe declares that he has no conflict of interest. Nigel Armfield declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Education & Training

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Edirippulige, S., Smith, A.C., Wickramasinghe, S. et al. Examining the Influence of E-Health Education on Professional Practice. J Med Syst 42, 215 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-1084-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-018-1084-5

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