Care Management: On Line-Based Approaches to Nurse Education in Ultrasound Imaging

Over the last two decades nurses have to face the need to be high qualified professionals with always updated competencies and practical skills. Learning on the Internet by the "e learning" method, fundamentally changed the way by which nurses can get information and be involved in educational activities designed to ensure their continuous medical education. The goal of our work was to provide e-education for ultrasound nurses by the use of a Learning Management Systems delivered through the Internet, within the framework e-EDUMED project. The project developed a virtual health educational center providing on-line education and training materials by 2 interactive training modules in ultrasound addressed to medical doctors and nurses and one module for patient education. The e-learning platform hosts asynchronous online courses - educational materials in a traditional style of presentation, PPT and course notes (text and images), questions and quizzes associated with each section, multimedia lessons. Synchronous online courses are implemented in the virtual class e-EDUMED allowing a tutor via the Internet to bring together a group of students in real time. The teacher can present materials (case studies, moving images, ultrasound examinations) and can receive information and feedback from students. The nurse training module is included in the e-learning platform and the learning pathway has been realized through an innovative methodological model combining both theoretical and practical aspects, in order to enhance the learning skills based on the study of real cases. Content is structured in the best way to build gradual competences. Another innovative approach in the development of our module is the importance of having a nurse as part of the ultrasound health team - a nurse whose presence conveys for the patient's psychosocial and physical needs. The usual patient reaction to illness is anxiety. Ultrasound can intensify anxiety by augmenting a feeling of alienation, creating a deficit of knowledge and/or invading personal space. In this way the module also promotes the belief that the nurse s role in ultrasound has one proeminent goal-positive patients relations. The conclusion drawn at the end of the project was that 3D images and virtual classrooms can support medical and nursing professionals in training without having the presumption to be exhaustive, but propaedeutic to practice. [For full proceedings, see ED571430.]