Practical research for better digital education in the healthcare sector

Since May, the Chair of Nursing Science, headed by Prof. Dr Margareta Halek, and the Chair of Didactics and Educational Research in Health Science, headed by Prof. Dr Jan Ehlers, have been working together on the MINDED.RUHR - My INdividual Digital EDucation.RUHR research project, which aims to provide individualised educational content for different target groups and learning types via a learning platform that has been further developed for this purpose. The MINDED.RUHR project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training until 2024. The consortium is led by MedEcon.RUHR, the health management network in the Ruhr region. In addition to Witten/Herdecke University (UW/H), the project partners also include TUTOOLIO GmbH, the Alfried Krupp Hospital in Essen, Fraunhofer ISST, the University of Duisburg/Essen, DATTREE AG and the Gute Hoffnung care centre.

Linking training needs and individual learning preferences

The initial motivation for the joint project lies in the highly relevant shortage of skilled workers in the health care system and the need for better, patient-centred cooperation between the health care professions. The resulting need for further training is to be linked to learning preferences. With the help of project partners from the field, an individualised learning management system is to be established in the health care system outside of universities and networked across settings. The project team is drawing on expertise from the hospital environment, inpatient and outpatient care, medicine and nursing science, didactics and the healthcare network in order to develop a learning type matrix in the interdisciplinary field. The aim is to take into account the different levels of requirements and individual, personal needs of those involved in the care of people with dementia, such as doctors, carers, support staff and technical staff.

The development of the learning type matrix and the dementia-specific educational content are the UW/H's contribution to the overall project. This needs-based educational content is then to be provided automatically during the course of the project by an artificial intelligence system to be developed. The results achieved in this way can be used as a blueprint for other relevant content in the health care sector. UW/H project coordinator Julia Nitsche emphasises: "The interdisciplinary collaboration within the overall consortium, but also between the two chairs at the UW/H in particular, provides a glimpse into the networked healthcare world of tomorrow."