Back to the future: personal digital assistants in nursing education

Mobile learning in dentistry: challenges and opportunities

Introduction The impact of smartphone technology is changing the approach to learning and teaching in clinical dental education. The aim of this study was to understand the challenges, opportunities and attitudes that both dental undergraduate students in an English dental school and tutors experience when using electronic learning.Materials and methods Six faculty members and 20 students agreed to take part in semi- structured interviews. Topic question guides for the student interviews focused on searching for information and how they used mobile learning. Questions also asked about the barriers encountered when accessing information on the internet, their perspective on the term 'evidence-based' information, and their use of mobile apps. The question topic guide for faculty was similar, with an emphasis on their attitudes to the introduction of such technology in dental education.Results Both groups reported active use of mobile learning tools. However, students are in need of training and further guidance when searching for, evaluating and synthesising evidence-based information online. Likewise, tutors need to become familliar with e-learning tools so that they may better support their students.Conclusion The results from the study show that participants need training workshops to ensure that students are not only accessing evidence-based information, but can differentiate between evidence-based and non-evidence-based information apps. The tutors in this study also require information on how to provide their students with advice on using mobile technology. Institutions involved with clinical dentistry should acknowledge such challenges.

Smartphone use by government dermatology practitioners in Kuwait: a self-reported questionnaire based cross-sectional study

Background

The potential for smartphones to revolutionize the way that medical doctors practice has become a reality, particularly in specialities where visual examination is a principal step in assessing a medical case, like dermatology. Smartphones as devices hold similar capabilities to personal computers and laptops and could play an important role in supporting medical practitioners in clinical practice at the point of care and beyond. This study aimed to assess the role of smartphone technology use in dermatology practice in Kuwait, together with the potential of digital photography and users’ concerns.

Methods

This cross-sectional survey involved a population of dermatology practitioners of all levels working in 11 dermatology centers distributed across six health regions in Kuwait. A validated self-reported questionnaire was used to collect data from the participants about their smartphone use. Quantitative analytical methods were undertaken to analyse the questionnaire responses.

Results

A total of 210 dermatologists were approached in their workplaces. Of these, 101 (48%) responded to the survey questionnaire, with a mean age of 39.1 years (±10.7 SD) and equal representation from both genders. All the respondents were using smartphone technology, wherein 94.1% used it to access medical information through various Internet search engines. The most prevalent applications used were medical and drug reference applications (69.3 and 66.3%, respectively). In all, 65% of the dermatologists were using smartphones to take clinical photographs of patients for special purposes, and this type of usage was significantly higher (p < 0.05) among females and those older than 40.

Conclusion

This study concludes that smartphone technology has an impactful role in dermatology practice, and many of its functions can be employed to achieve better practice and better patient care. Recommendations are suggested for clinicians using smartphones in dermatology practice.

Mobile Phone Use Among Medical Residents: A Cross-Sectional Multicenter Survey in Saudi Arabia

Background

Mobile phones have great potential for medical education, as they allow health care providers and students to access resources efficiently at the precise time at the point-of-care to help in informed decision making.

Objective

The objective of the study was to evaluate the prevalence of mobile phone usage among medical residents and to explore their attitudes, perceptions, and the challenges they experience when using mobile phones in academic and clinical practice.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted on all 133 residents in 17 different specialties across two large academic hospitals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Web-based validated questionnaire measured mobile phone platform preferences, and their uses in general and medical practice. The perception of confidentiality and safety impact of using mobile phones for communication and accessing patient’s data was also explored, alongside challenges of use and how residents learn to use their mobile phone.

Results

With a response rate of 101/133 (75.9%) and mean age of 27.8 (SD 3.0) years, we found that 100/101 (99.0%) of participants were mobile phone users with mean duration of use of 5.12 (SD 2.4) years, and a range from 1 to 12 years. There was no significant difference in use between male and female respondents. A negative linear correlation was found between age and use duration (P=.004). The most common operating system used by participants was the iOS platform (55/101, 54.5%), with English the most commonly used language to operate residents’ mobile phones (96/100, 96.0%) despite their native language being Arabic. For communication outside medical practice, chatting applications such as WhatsApp matched phone calls as most commonly used tools (each 88/101, 87.1%). These were also the primary tools for medical communication, but used at a lower rate (each 65/101, 64.4%). In medical practice, drug (83/101, 82.2%) and medical (80/101, 79.2%) references and medical calculation applications (61/101, 60.4%) were the most commonly used. Short battery life (48/92, 52%) was the most common technical difficulty, and distraction at least on a weekly basis (54/92, 58%) was the most likely side effect of using a mobile phone in medical practice. Practically, all participants agreed with the idea of integrating medical staff mobile phones with the hospital information system. Most residents described themselves as self-learners, while half learned from peers, and a quarter learned from the Internet. Only 7/101 (6.9%) had received formal training on the medical use of mobile phones. Over half of residents thought it was safe to discuss patients over their personal, nonencrypted email.

Conclusions

Mobile phone use among medical residents has become almost universal in academic and clinical settings. Thus, academic and health care institutions should support proper utilization of these devices in medical training and point-of-care decision making, while continuing to protect patient confidentiality.

Using mobile phones and social media to facilitate education and support for rural-based midwives in South Africa

BACKGROUND

Empirical studies show the value of mobile phones as effective educational tools to support learning in the nursing profession, predominantly in high income countries.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The rapidly increasing prevalence of mobile phone technology in Africa nourishes hopes that these tools could be equally effective in lowly resourced contexts, specifically in efforts to achieve the health-related Millennium Development goals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception and use of mobile phones as educational and professional tools by nurses in lowly resourced settings.

METHODOLOGY

A quantitative survey using self-administered questionnaires was conducted of rural advanced midwives.

RESULTS

Fifty-six nurses (49.6%) from the 113 rural-based midwives attending an advanced midwifery training programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, filled in a questionnaire. The results showed that, whilst nurses regarded their technology competences as low and although they received very little official support from their educational and professional institutions, the majority frequently used mobile functions and applications to support their work and learning processes. They perceived mobile devices with their voice, text, and email functions as important tools for the educational and professional activities of searching for information and engaging with facilitators and peers from work and study contexts. To a lesser extent, the use of social networks, such as WhatsApp and Facebook, were also reported.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

It is concluded that educational institutions should support the appropriate use of mobile phones more systematically; particularly in relation to the development of mobile network literacy skills.

Integrating mobile devices into nursing curricula: opportunities for implementation using Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation model

OBJECTIVES

To identify studies reporting mobile device integration into undergraduate and graduate nursing curricula. To explore the potential use of Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation model as a framework to guide implementation of mobile devices into nursing curricula.

DESIGN

Literature review and thematic categorization.

DATA SOURCES

Literature published up until June 2013 was searched using EBSCO, PubMed, and Google Scholar.

REVIEW METHOD

The literature was reviewed for research articles pertaining to mobile device use in nursing education. Research articles were grouped by study design, and articles were classified by: 1) strategies for individual adopters and 2) strategies for organizations. Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation theory was used to categorize reported implementation strategies.

RESULTS

Fifty-two research studies were identified. Strategies for implementation were varied, and challenges to integrating mobile devices include lack of administrative support and time/funding to educate faculty as well as students. Overall, the use of mobile devices appears to provide benefits to nursing students; however the research evidence is limited.

CONCLUSION

Anticipating challenges and ensuring a well laid out strategic plan can assist in supporting successful integration of mobile devices.

Distance and devices - potential barriers to use of wireless handheld devices

This paper reports the findings of a research project investigating the use of iPods by student nurses to enhance their interactions with content, instructors and peers while located at a distance from their university campus. Wireless handheld devices (WHD) are an important tool in nursing environments that are undergoing rapid technological change. Preferred treatments, drug dosages, postsurgical care, and preventive healthcare regimens continually change and such devices allow students to rapidly confirm information while in the clinical area, thus fostering active learning and safe practice. A case study approach was adopted with each participating student cohort comprising a case. Multiple data collection methods were used to enable rich descriptions of each case. This paper focusses on factors, relating to the use of iPods, which influenced student learning in distance courses at two regional Queensland universities. It furthermore highlights a range of creative interventions reported by students and educators in resolving issues with their devices. The study found that connectivity difficulties, technology literacy level, compatibility of study resources with the WHDs, and small screen size were all factors that impacted negatively on the use of iPods in distance courses. The paper describes the responses of students and educators to the use of iPods for learning. This study concluded that nursing students and nursing educators alike may experience problems when WHD's are introduced to courses as a platform for learning. However, both students and educators can be innovative and resourceful in managing these problems and, when access to course resources that were enabled for viewing on the WHDs were available, the learning experience of the students and the teaching experience for the educators were enhanced.

Web 2.0: easy tools for busy clinicians

Internet content has become interactive; new tools can help clinicians market their practice and provide evidence-based care. Many of these tools are free or low cost and are easily mastered using simple video tutorials found on the Internet. This article highlights the uses of e-mail, social networking, smartphones, RSS feeds, social bookmarking, and collaborative Web 2.0 tools in clinical practice.