Email biomed@ulster.ac.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact Us
School of Biomedical Sciences
| Pedagogic Research |
|---|
Piloting of an Online Module in Skills for Evidence-based Healthcare Practice.
Current initiatives within the healthcare sector are placing considerable emphasis on attaining clinical excellence, maintaining continued professional development (CPD) and developing an evidence-based approach to clinical practice.
This necessitates a focused and positive attitude towards research and development, providing the opportunity for health professions to undertake better-informed practice but requiring development of new skills such as effective literature searching and critical appraisal.
Within the healthcare professions there are also growing pressures on staff to undertake professional development in order to demonstrate their continued "fitness to practice" to remain on the Health Professions Council (HPC) register.
The HPC require registrants to "keep their professional knowledge and skills up to date" and to only "act within the limits of their knowledge and skills".
In order to meet these needs for professional development we aimed to develop, pilot and evaluate an M-level online module in "Skills for Evidence-based Healthcare Practice".
Although the module was piloted within a postgraduate Biomedical Sciences course, it is sufficiently generic to meet the needs of these healthcare groups and, indeed, could be adapted to meet the needs of the other related professions that are also on the HPC professional register. It could also be taken as a stand-alone short course for CPD.
