Electronically Assisting Communication for Health Professionals: engaging with digital documents The Health Context

Abstract: New information and computing technologies offer cost efficient and effective learning opportunities for health care professionals. The Assisted Electronic Communication project is prototyping, administering and evaluating a digital discourse system for health care professionals within an acute Hospital. Health care staff participating in the study are able to access and contribute to threaded, asynchronous discussions and themed information in the context of critical work documents. Early indications are that the system is viewed very positively, and seen as a way of critically engaging with new material that is getting closer to an idealized learning in the workplace. Health care systems are now looking to new technologies to effect changes their working practices and culture. Enhanced clinical performance is directly associated with the development more open and efficient communication systems, and, certainly in the UK, national priorities and funding have been directed in this way (Department of Health, 1997). In this policy context, the health care professions and particularly nursing, have seen very radical changes in respect of the demands being placed on the profession for information management. Ongoing research at a typical UK Hospital (Brooks, et al 1998) on nursing communication and management structures has highlighted that although commitment to change is high among nursing staff, there is