The advent of technology has meant a lot of firsts for the modern world – including the medical and healthcare industry. Be it the advanced research methodologies in understanding critical illnesses and ever-evolving lifestyle diseases, or to invent new ways to impart medical education – technology has become an intrinsic part of the healthcare sector over the last few decades. Amongst many game changers that this industry has seen, e-learning is proving to be the need of the hour. Easy availability of smartphones, tablets along with affordable data plans are making e-learning an option that fills up the gaps. Making quality healthcare accessible to all even in the farthest corners of the world continues to be a major challenge due to paucity of the talented healthcare professionals. And this is where online medical education has come to become a boon for the entire sector.
From training the primary healthcare professionals to help aid initial diagnosis in remote areas to providing doctors with the latest developments in their fields, e-learning has a lot of merits. The success of an e-learning program depends as much on the curriculum as on the instructor and student.
So, what is the latest in the field of online learning?
- Blended learning
As the name suggests, blended learning is the hybrid of online and classroom teaching. The mixture of face to face classes and online lessons makes the course interesting and engaging for both the instructor and students.
- Mobile learning
This is a growing market in even the tier two cities and remote towns, given the smartphone wave that has gripped the world. Lessons on mobiles carry the advantage of giving freedom to the user to consume it at his convenience.
- Microlearning
Sending out bite-sized content pieces to healthcare professionals makes it easier to learn and absorb. This is also important given the time crunch that doctors already deal with.
- Adaptive learning
This approach is like customizing content to suit the needs of the user. The difficulty type in this learning can be adjusted in real-time depending on how the learner is doing. Adaptive learning provides a better learning experience and when combined with effective assessment makes a good tool to provide learning.
- Gamification
This is a great tool to keep the participants engaged, motivate them to accomplish various tasks in the program and rewarding the performers.
E-learning is opening up wider avenues for the healthcare professionals and companies because it is bringing learning to all, at a pace they all want. It is here to stay, and about time stakeholders use this opportunity to everyone’s benefit.
