A role for tele-education in the centralization of accident and emergency services

Abstract

summary

We evaluated the use of tele-education to provide an induction programme for accident and emergency senior house officers (SHOs) in three remote locations, and compared their performance with that of SHOs receiving the same induction programme in the conventional manner. Both groups of doctors performed similarly in a pre-course multiple-choice question (MCQ) paper, and showed comparable improvement following the induction programme lectures. Sound quality and levels of interactivity were identified as areas for improvement in the tele-education programme. Tele-education might allow doctors based in peripheral units similar access to high-quality teaching to that enjoyed by those in larger hospitals. Further experience and evaluation are required to optimize this method of education delivery.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine. The Way Ahead 1998. London: BSC Print Ltd, 1998

Brebner

, Brebner

, Norman

, Brown

, Ruddick-Bracken

, Lanphear

. Intercontinental postmortem studies using interactive television. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare 1997; 3: 48–52.

Clark

, Flemming

. Tele-education evaluation of a registrar training programme. Clinical and Experimental Dermatology 2002; 27: 257

Finley

, Beland

, Boutin

. A national network for the tele-education of Canadian residents in pediatric cardiology. Cardiology in the Young 2001; 11: 526–31.

Crandall

, Coggan

. Impact of new information technologies on training and continuing education for rural health professionals. Journal of Rural Health 1994; 10: 208–15.