A research project to design, implement and assess the effectiveness of a sole eLearning module to prepare non-medical healthcare practitioners to report nuclear medicine bone scans

摘要

The premise for this research initially stemmed from a perceived crisis facing the provision of the nuclear medicine service within the United Kingdom, the possible impact posed by the shortage of nuclear medicine clinicians and the untapped potential of a body of non-medical healthcare practitioners working within the nuclear medicine sector to whom recognised additional roles, such as reporting of images, may sensibly be delegated. Yet, despite the support by various professional bodies and colleges, uptake is not widespread and appears to be ill provided for in terms of educational programmes. From an educational perspective, with ever advancing technology and the ubiquity of web based resources, eLearning within healthcare is still in its infancy. Certainly its ability and flexibility to reach geographically diverse populations of learners, is undisputed, yet whilst advantageous to the professional leaner in accessing material away from a restricted campus based environment, its efficacy to teach a skill, or competence, and indeed to translate this to clinical practice remains largely unproven. With both these issue in mind, the project question was posed as to whether it was possible to establish the efficacy and credibility of an eLearning resource to prepare and support the training of non-medical healthcare practitioners working within the field of nuclear medicine in reporting of bone scans.