Prague, July 2005 - (by Antonín Malina, M.D., Ph.D., MBA and Antonín Hlaváèek , Ph.D.) The Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education in Prague is a public organisation that mainly focuses on the postgraduate education of doctors, pharmacists, and other professionals in the Czech health service. The education is managed in two directions: on the one hand it supports the acquisition of professional qualifications for work, and on the other it focuses on lifelong education.
A fundamental part of Institute's activities involves providing solutions in the areas of research grants, project implementation, healthcare analyses, and the creation of conceptual materials. The Institute became responsible for the implementation of a DRG (Diagnosis Related Group) pilot project in the Czech Republic in 2002. The DRG is a statistical classification system that categorizes in-patients into specific groups according to diagnoses, key medical procedures, and economic costs. A number of countries already apply these systems in hospital management, and they are widely used in health care finance systems as well.
The DRG system introduces a new level of quality in hospital management, which is why it frequently demands changes in the work patterns of a whole range of employees in healthcare organizations. As the system classifies the patients into specific groups, it requires that all the hospital's doctors, middle and top-level healthcare management, informatics engineers, and other employees at least become familiar with it. Indeed, knowledge of this system is also essential for the majority of medical insurance company employees.
It is obvious that successful implementation of the DRG system in inpatient care hinges on educating an extensive, professionally structured group of employees. For this reason, even in the pilot operation of the project, a significant portion of capacities focused on training.
Already few years ago, the management of the Institute cited fostering innovation in educational methods and organization that is commensurate with the requirements of distance education as one of its strategic goals. Toward this end, the Institute has been operating the project in cooperation with specialized companies in order to identify optimal methods for the integration of eLearning into its educational activities.
Adequate fundamental conditions for distance education were created, mainly with regard to IT availability, the skills to work with it, and an Internet connection for both potential eLearning participants and the Institute as a whole. The technical capacities for the management of an eLearning education system have also been put in place.
The Institute's management decided to focus the implementation of its eLearning pilot project on the DRG area. At the same time it was decided that training should combine eLearning with classical classroom education.
Following the initial project and its review, a pilot project was developed. It consisted of the following stages:
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The project realization was not problem-free. The creation of a project team was the fundamental issue, and the need for changes came up as some members were external collaborators whose time was more limited than had been anticipated. Indeed, the teamwork was linked to the motivation of its members, and it became necessary to identify the various factors - social appraisal, communication with Czech as well as foreign professionals, the creation of an independent department, etc. - which were negatively influencing the process.
Nevertheless, despite the problems encountered, on the whole the first reaction to the application of eLearning was positive. The main contributions observed were:
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From the perspective of the organization that set up the eLearning programs, experience to date has shown the need to:
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