Educating the Healthcare Workforce to Support Digital Transformation

Abstract

Digital transformation of the healthcare workforce is a priority if we are to leverage the potential of digital technologies, artificial intelligence in clinical decision support and the potential of data captured within electronic health records. Educational programmes need to be diverse and support the digital novices through to the champions whom will be responsible for procuring and implementing digital solutions. In order to professionalise the workforce in this area, digital competencies need to be built into training from early on and be underpinned by frameworks that help to guide regulators and professional bodies and support educational providers to deliver them. Here we describe Manchester’s involvement in the development of digital competency frameworks and our digital transformation education programmes that we have created, including a Massive Online Open Course and a professional development course for England’s Topol Digital Fellows.

Measuring the Digital Competence of Health Professionals: Scoping Review

“…Therefore, it is no surprise that the digital transformation within the health care sector, involving new processes and technologies [2], has completely changed the demands on people working in health care professions. Digital competence in health care is needed [3,4]. According to Vitello et al [5], competence is "the ability to integrate and apply contextually-appropriate knowledge, skills and psychosocial factors (e.g., beliefs, attitudes, values and motivations) to consistently perform successfully within a specified domain."…”

Digital Fellowships: Inspiring use of contemporary technologies in applied healthcare

“…In the UK the recently published NHS Long Term Workforce Plan 3 attempts to outline strategies for workforce training, retention, and reform. The plan puts digital at the forefront and it illustrates some of the ways in which the digital workforce can be trained through organisations such as The NHS Digital Academy 4 , which offers programmes like the Digital Leadership Programme and Digital Fellowships, as well as providing resources like the AI and Digital Healthcare Technologies Capability Framework 5 . Here, we highlight the role of digital fellowships as catalysts for future-oriented, resilient, and adaptable workforce in an increasingly digital world.…”

Competency-based education advances in Higher Education in Health

“…Part of the challenges faced by the rehabilitation sector include the lack of technical knowledge, capacities, and didactical competencies in the application of digital rehabilitation (Longhini et al, 2022;Mikkonen et al, 2018). One of the main identified challenges in the adaption of new digital opportunities, was the access to relevant and evidence-based knowledge of which solutions to use to include digital rehabilitation into the scope of services provided (Davies et al, 2022;Redecker et al, 2017). Another identified challenge was the general competence and capability of rehabilitation workforce to design use cases, with the users, for the existing digital solutions and for the different emerging technologies (Jarva et al, 2022;Seeman et al, 2023).…”