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 “best practices” 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 project’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 project’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).
