Journal of Regional Medical Campuses

Postgraduate trainee views on eHealth at a distributed medical campus.

Sophiya Benjamin, MBBS

McMaster University

Joanne Ho, MD, MSc

Jeff Alfonsi, MD

Hugh Kellam, PhD

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/jrmc.v2i1.1374

Keywords: telemedicine, econsult, eHealth, needs assessment, postgraduate education

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Abstract

Purpose: e-Health is a rapidly evolving field that cuts across specialties however; there is a gap in development and evaluation of training for postgraduates in residency programs. This is a multicentre, collaborative effort among faculty from the departments of Psychiatry, Geriatrics and Internal Medicine in partnership with Ontario Telehealth Network to assess the needs of postgraduate residents in ehealth and build a pilot program to address identified learning gaps.

Methodology: We conducted a needs assessment (Appendix A) through an online survey to investigate the self-perceived knowledge, gaps and barriers to eHealth of medical resident physicians at the McMaster University DeGroote School of Medicine Waterloo Regional Campus (WRC), Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Results: All respondents identified that they would be interested in education in telehealth and all of them felt that they would have to use telehealth in their future practices. However, 83.3% did not feel confident using telemedicine in clinical practice. Based on the results of the needs assessment, we have built a pilot rotation in which postgraduate trainees can practice telehealth skills in an interdisciplinary setting.