Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Education
Date Submitted: Jul 30, 2023
Date Accepted: Feb 13, 2024
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Implementation of a transdisciplinary Digital Health Curriculum – A One Year Experience of Knowledge Transfer and Networking in a Unique Digital Health Training Culture
ABSTRACT
Background:
Digital health has been taught at medical faculties for a few years. Overall, however, the teaching of digital competencies in medical education and training is still underrepresented.
Objective:
The aim of this study is to analyse the objective acquisition of digital competencies - including digital learning methods - through the implementation of a transdisciplinary digital health curriculum at a German university.
Methods:
The main subject areas management/digital leadership, digital didactics, digital communication and robotics/artificial intelligence were taught over a period of one semester. The analysis period is one year. Relevant contents of the curriculum were indicated by the participants on a Likert scale of (1 = very well taught to 5 = not taught at all) with regard to the competences already taught in advance during the study. The participants' digital competences were initially examined with a pre-posttest consisting of 12 questions. Learning objectives were assigned to courses of a curriculum. The curriculum was open to students from all faculties of the University.
Results:
In the first year, students of human medicine (n=15), dentistry (n=3) and medical biotechnology (n=2) participated in the curriculum. N=13 participants were female (male: n=7). 61.1% of the participants from human medicine and dentistry were in the preclinical study stage (clinical: 38.9%). All questioned teaching contents were predominantly not taught in all study sections (preclinical: mean:4.2; clinical mean: 4.4, p=0.024) The pre-posttest comparison showed a significant knowledge increase of 106% (p<0,001) for the participants.
Conclusions:
The transdisciplinary teaching of a Digital Health curriculum - including digital learning methods - takes into account perspectives and skills from different disciplines. This enables an objective increase in knowledge regarding the complex challenges of the digital transformation of our health system.
Citation
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