Post-Registration IPL: Becoming a Paediatric Practitioner "Virtually"

Abstract

Educational solutions for allied health professionals (AHP’s) need to stimulate problem-solving skills although AHP’s seldom have the opportunity to develop these skills in a paediatric environment prior to registration. Computer aided learning (CAL) has become an established educational option with a growing body of literature detailing positive CAL introduction within HC education across many disciplines. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) scoping exercise identified a paucity of paediatric education at a pre and post registration levels for all Allied Health Professionals (AHP’s), except speech and language therapists. The question considered was would a reusable CAL (ReTool) be a useful tool in developing interprofessional learning for AHP’s in paediatrics with potential to become a core part of induction for new and aspirant paediatric AHP’s allowing flexibility in access (location & time). A pilot was completed with a group of AHP’s (N12). ReTool was evaluated positively by users for usability (88.9% rated very easy or easy). Working with children and young people requires the ability to work as part of a multigency team and an ability to learn from one another therefore individuals were asked to comment on the IPL opportunity of the project. They rated ReTool positively in facilitating joint working and decision making for IPL (N10).