A mobile clinical e-portfolio for nursing and medical students, using wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs).
This paper outlines the development and evaluation of a wireless personal digital assistant (PDA) based clinical learning tool designed to promote professional reflection for health professionals. The "Clinical e-portfolio" was developed at the University of British Columbia School of Nursing to enable students immediately to access clinical expertise and resources remotely, and record their clinical experiences in a variety of media (text, audio and images). The PDA e-portfolio tool was developed to demonstrate the potential use of mobile networked technologies to support and improve clinical learning; promote reflective learning in practice; engage students in the process of knowledge translation; help contextualize and embed clinical knowledge whilst in the workplace; and to help prevent the isolation of students whilst engaged in supervised clinical practice. The mobile e-portfolio was developed to synchronise wirelessly with a user's personal Web based portfolio from any remote location where a cellular telephone signal or wireless (Wi-Fi) connection could be obtained. An evaluation of the tool was undertaken with nurse practitioner and medical students, revealing positive attitudes to the use of PDA based tools and portfolios, but limits to the use of the PDA portfolio due to the inherent interface restrictions of the PDA.
Garrett
Bernard Mark
BM
School of Nursing, University of British Columbia, T201-2211 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 2B5. garrett@nursing.ubc.ca
Jackson
Cathryn
C
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D001955:British Columbia; D040421:Cell Phone / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003200:Computer User Training; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction / Q000379:methods; D034201:Computers, Handheld / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004346:Drug Information Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate / Q000379:methods*; D034742:Electronic Mail / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D010865:Pilot Projects; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D014584:User-Computer Interface