The State of the Art in Healthcare Elearning Panel

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The State of the Art in Healthcare E-learning
Panel

• Virtual Communities of Practice

John Parboosingh MB, FRCSC Former Director,
Professional Development Royal College of
Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Consultant,
Community Learning
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Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoPs)

• Why the emphasis on learning in groups?
• Technical support for VCoPS
• Some examples of VCoPs
• Challenges for the future in VCoPs

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The traditional Teaching paradigm
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The nature of practice is changing McKinsey
Quarterly, 2005 4

• Three types of work activities
• transformational (converting raw materials into
  finished goods)
• transactional (applying rules policies) and
• tacit (complex interactions requiring judgment,
  involving ambiguity, and drawing on tacit,
  experiential, knowledge).

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Change in distribution of Tacit workers 1998
2004
Distribution of job type by industry in 2004,
Percent of workforce
Hospitals
2.6
2.6
Securities
8.1
Retail Trade
0
-1.4
Real Estate
20.1
Air Transportation
7.3
Computer Manufacturing
Hotels, etc
2.4
0.8
Construction
0.2
Electrical equipment
Paper manufacturing
1.4
Mining
-0.5
4.0
Textiles
Tacit work
Transform
Transact.
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Methods used to enhance performanceMcKinsey
Quarterly, 2005 4

• Tacit worker Interaction with peers,
  storytelling, shared language, tools, lateral
  mentoring
• COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE -

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Changes in the nature of Clinical Practice are
forcing changes in Med Education

• Increasing number of complex cases with
  physico-social economic factors requiring
• Complex problem solving
• Conflicts of interest
• Clinical judgment
• Practical wisdom
• Uncertain outcomes

Patients are seeking Solutions that help them to
solve their problems. Not off-the-shelf advice
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How we create working knowledge from information
Raw Information or data
Making sense of information
Apply it to practice
Makes us know ABOUT the topic
Makes us know HOW to apply it to work
Working in a CoP helps us to make information
fit our world
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NEW PARADIGM Learning through interaction
with peers mentors
Learning Resources
Mentor
INTERACTIVITY
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Interactivity by STORY TELLING

• clinical reasoning
• improvisation
• clinical judgment
• lateral mentoring

Learning that occurs when we critically
reconstruct practice. (Wenger, 2001)
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Technical Support
Communities of Practice
Community Facilitation

• Inquiry
• Sharing experiences
• Accessing information
• Solving problems
• Creating new ideas. tools

Knowledge Repository
Discussion Forum
Community Assets
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Types of VCoPs in Health Care

• International research groups high
  performance teams
• Open discussion groups focused on diseases
• Health profession groups eg., Medscape
• Team related VCoPs eg., GEOQ program

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Cultural Challenges that we are working on

• We cultivate individualism not collectivism
• Leaders are charismatic, not facilitative
• Practice and education are separate entities
• We dont talk about our work this is seen as
  non-productive time
• We need to better understand how best practices
  are shared

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The State of the Art in Healthcare E-learning
Panel

• Thank you for your attention

John Parboosingh MB, FRCSC parboo_at_telusplanet.net