JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Digital tools, services and information in patient care demand new competences in outpatient care and the workforce is faced with the need to deal with digitalization.

Objective:

In a targeted certificate course (Certification of Digitalization Officers in Medical Practices and Psychotherapeutic Practices (Digi-Manager)), medical assistants are trained as digitalization officers for their practices to be able to implement the requirements of digitalized healthcare in practices.

Methods:

As part of an accompanying study, the course is evaluated by the participants and the change in their digital literacy is recorded. We measured different knowledge, skills and attitude dimensions to three different times: before, during and after the course and used ANOVA to examine for significant changes.

Results:

Digi-Managers started the course with already high self-assessment of their digital literacy. Skills and knowledge increased significantly in all categories (cognitive, technical, ethical and health information) from the initial to the final measurement, as did self-confidence in the use of general software and hardware. Positive attitude remains stable over the training period and the course was rated very positively by participants across all areas.

Conclusions:

Training programs on digital topics for healthcare professionals are necessary and this certification course is a role model for successful further education through a mixture of theoretical knowledge transfer and practical application. Especially the use of a digital maturity model and a digital laboratory were unique and useful features. Further research needs to go into alternative assessment methods of digital literacy, as the results suggest that self-assessment measures self-efficacy and confidence, rather than pure competence. Nevertheless, the in-crease in self-assessed competence suggests that the training was successful.