DELIVER - "Digital EducationaL programme invoIVing hEalth pRofessionals"

Digitalisation Demands Digital Skills

Digitalisation is moving fast, including in our healthcare sector. This development has been further expedited during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is the background for the 3-year ERASMUS+ project ”Digital EducationaL programme invoIVing hEalth pRofessionals” (DELIVER), which aims to advance digital skills for European healthcare professionals and thus prepare them for the increasing demand for digital solutions in the European healthcare sector. DELIVER has four partnering countries in the EU, who each lead a work package in the project.

First Meeting in the Danish Reference Group

At the end of May, the Danish reference group met for the first time, to plan one of the Danish tasks of uncovering the digital skills level of healthcare professionals in order to identify which skills are needed. Furthermore, the meeting aimed to identify differences in skill levels and compare knowledge and strategies/best practice between the European countries.

The needs analysis entails a number of challenges, both in relation to which target groups the digital skills programme should address and how the study should be designed, as well as how to ensure support and upscaling in European hospitals.

The needs analysis should take into account the need to address a broad target group, which includes healthcare professionals and managers in hospitals and municipalities.

At the same time, the analysis should identify needs for learning and improvement, while encompassing the generic perspective of the project. The digital skills initiatives that the project develops should make sense for all of the four partnering countries.
Randi Lehmann Boesen, Innovation Consultant at the Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark, says,

- The reference group members represent a wide array of different experiences and competencies, which are super relevant for the DELIVER project. Based on their advice, ideas and comments we will now develop the study design, which the project partners can approve in September. The actual data collection will be carried out in Autumn 2021. We expect the report from the needs analysis ready before the Summer holiday in 2022.

The next task will be for the Danish reference group to develop and test the educational programme and e-learning materials, based on the needs analysis, among other things.

Generic Educational Programme, e-Learning Materials and e-Learning Platform

The final output in DELIVER is a generic educational programme, e-Learning materials and an e-Learning platform, which will advance the digital skills of healthcare professionals across countries and regions in Europe. The goal is to enable healthcare professionals to deliver high quality healthcare services to the benefit of citizens and patients and to advance digital transformation of the European healthcare sector.

FACTS

The reference group has representatives from educational institutions, municipalities, hospitals and psychiatric care, as well as patients association and regions.