Enhancing patients’ employability through informal eLearning while at hospital

Attachment

media17535.pdf

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Description

Access to lifelong learning provisions for all citizens and enhancement of their employabilty are central aims of European policies in education and training. eHospital, a European pilot project seeks to bring learning opportunities to people who do not normally have the chance to learn: adult patients who are forced to spend a longer period of time in hospitals.

eHospital has demonstrated that blended learning can be an adequate means to overcome patients’ isolation and ease their way back to normal life and employment.

In this article the intervention framework of the project is presented and two of the seven eLearning pilots with directly employment-related learning topics are described in more detail.

Four main results of the pilot project eHospital are highlighted:

The eLearning offers provided by eHospital were very much appreciated by the patients and hospital staff involved. This demonstrates the need for further initiatives which help to ease the transition between hospital and employment.

New technologies have a considerable potential for enabling patients to use the time in hospital for maintaining or restoring their employability: Hospital patients are restricted in their mobility and are forced to adhere to a rather rigid hospital routine. They can therefore profit from being independent on the time-space arrangements of conventional face-to-face learning. Also, social interaction and joint learning activities with peers become possible with the help of virtual tools.

Specific educational strategies need to be developed for patient learners. Only blended learning can be a successful eLearning strategy in a hospital context. The personal relationship between patient learner and tutor is crucial.

And, at last, the provision of eLearning for hospital patients poses considerable organisational challenges: New partnerships between education providers and healthcare institutions need to be formed. Different – public and private – mechanisms to fund learning in hospitals need to be developed in times of increasing financial pressures in the health sector and in education and training.

Author

Holger Bienzle. Head EU Department, die Berater®