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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EUUSEHEALTHWORK (Mapping Skills and Competencies; Providing Access to Knowledge, Tools and Platforms; and Strengthening, Disseminating and Exploiting Success Outcomes for a Skilled Transatlantic eHealth Workforce)

Teaser

Summary

\"Electronic systems in healthcare help increase quality, safety and efficiency of healthcare delivery. These electronic systems are called eHealth or health information technology. eHealth enables healthcare workers and providers to maximize their care delivery, and ultimately results in better outcomes for patients, consumers and society.

Healthcare systems cannot work without people. They require a robust supply of highly skilled and proficient eHealth/IT professionals to use, operate and maintain them. Some of these professionals are front-facing care providers, such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other care-givers.

There is a global shortage of skilled eHealth workers. This global shortage of eHealth workers spans the full spectrum of job roles, including clinical, social care, research, biomedicine, informatics, and administration. There is also a dearth of structured eHealth education and training opportunities. To compound matters, students often take traditional core educational courses without getting any specialization in the electronic health disciplines, making them educated in health sciences, but not \"\"IT skilled\"\".

The goal of this project is to address this workforce shortage and lack of full access to eHealth skills and competence by:

- measuring: mapping needs, gaps, skills and competencies, and outcome models of eHealth
- informing: providing access to knowledge tools and platforms, and resources to assess and improve eHealth skills
- educating: increasing eHealth educational and training opportunities, and
- advancing: promoting knowledge and development in the field by strengthening, disseminating and exploiting success outcomes for a skilled Transatlantic eHealth workforce

By project\'s end, the project consortium has utilized every opportunity to present the results of our work and progress at nearly every opportunity throughout the duration of the 21-month project, and we will continue to do so. We have made it our goal to present relevant and informative materials and engage global stakeholders. We have also strived to ensure we are inclusive of a wide array of perspectives, voices and representations of thought regarding digital skills and approaches to workforce development in eHealth. We have convened panels with the specific mission of presenting ideas, methodologies and actions plans for further developing the IT skills and training programs for the healthcare workforce. We have engaged and incorporated the industry, public and private entities and the eHealth community at-large to continue the work that we have begun with our deliverables of survey, gap analysis, case studies, foundational curriculum, interactive web framework and others.\"

Work performed

First Quarter: Development of Survey: The Survey of Current States of Needs was two pronged: 1.To map and analyse the needs, trends and approaches to improve the HIT workforce, which includes further aligning the HITCOMP Tool and Repository with existing and developed competencies, skills matrices and training materials; and 2.to complete the tasks associated with identifying and linking to existing educational resources as well as actual development of online curriculum that provides foundational education in healthcare. On 14 February 2017, the survey was deployed to all member states within the European Union as well as in the United States.

Second Quarter: EU-US Collaboration Event in Orlando, Florida, USA: On Tuesday, February 21st, Toria Shaw, HIMSS Manager, Clinical Informatics, TIGER Staff Liaison and EU*US eHealth Project Team Lead, kicked off the EU*US Collaboration Roundtable Event which provided a unique opportunity for US key stakeholders and TIGER Committee member to meet with members of the EU*US eHealth Work Consortium. Following both presentations, key US & European stakeholders were invited to ask questions, provide input and explore ways to get involved in this dynamic, transatlantic project.

Third quarter: Gap Analysis and Collaboration Events: We performed a gap analysis to analyse the Survey of Current State of Needs of the eHealth Workforce. The results reflect the opinions of experts who oversee the entire field of health informatics as well as the voices of the broad field of health IT. We identified 10 major gaps (7 directly related to training and are being by development of our project\'s foundational curriculum).

Through its tools and resources, the project is working to address each of these gaps. As a consortium, as one measure to address the gaps, we also developed 12 recommendations as guidelines for â€œbest practicesâ€ in eHealth workforce development education, training and skills.

We also held Stakeholder engagement events in Helsinki, Finland and in Oldenburg, Germany.

Fourth quarter: We held our Final Conference in conjunction with Medical Informatics Europe (MIE) in Gothenburg, Sweden. Over 50 stakeholders engaged in panels, presentations and collaboration events throughout the day-long three-part event.

Finally, we conducted 22 global case studies to find real world examples where the previously found gaps and trends were being illustrated. The case studies were performed to demonstrate:
- Real world cases of issues, challenges or gaps identified in our Survey and Gap Analysis
- Remedies proposed, concepts identified or solutions implemented for bridging gaps and overcoming challenges in these areas
- Examples of successes and best practices in eHealth education and training, skills preparation, competency assessment and/or workforce development

We also finalized our foundational curriculum. The foundational curriculum provides baseline and basic eHealth skills (digital competency in healthcare) upon completion. The Foundational Curriculum is the projectâ€™s flagship content for eLearning in Digital Healthcare. Survey, gap analysis and case studies all made the need for development of a comprehensive foundational curriculum in eHealth a necessary component to the projectâ€™s work. The content loosely translates to the equivalent of a 60 unit/60 hour online course and includes 10 clusters and 21 modules, broken down into 60 units in 40 different areas of competency.

The Interactive Web Platform (IWP) was finalized by the project. The IWP is a role-based learning and resource platform that integrates the Foundational Curriculum, VLE, Skills and Knowledge Assessment and Development Framework, and other tools and resources such as ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Skills, Qualifications and Occupations).

Final results

During the project, we continued in our philosophy of creating state of the art tools and resources, including an Interactive Web Platform and a Skills and Assessment Development Framework. We have also updated HITComp, which was begun under the first phase of the project, but was upgraded and updated to become an even more robust tool and repository for global health competencies that are intersected with health skills and education.

We also created a free online foundational curriculum, with over 60 hours/60 units of educational materials in eHealth covering such topics as clinical decision support, telehealth, information technology basics, and population health management. These results should have great impact on the field of eHealth, both now and in the future.