The ICU as a Learning Environment

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to develop a novel system for critical care that delivers instructional material to healthcare personnel at the point of care. The overall goal is to shift some of the delivery of continuing education to the bedside, where relevant and often rich, untapped opportunities for context-based learning exist. The Phase II project will complete development of the system designed in Phase I. Specifically we will develop a system to automatically recognize the student, a Context Coupler to link the learning to the educational material, a methodology to transmit student progress to a professional organization and receive credits back, authoring tools for third parties to develop content, and a competency management system. The systems will be tested at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Hospital, and Stanford Hospital. The commercial products to be sold are the Learning Systems at the bedside, the authoring tools for content providers (authoring), and a competency management tool. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: We believe this system will provide a more efficient method for delivering instructional content to the bedside where clinical questions arise. It will provide an innovative system for improving the quality of patient care through continuous professional development.