About Sharing in Health
SharingInHealth is a rapidly-growing resource that seeks to provide open-access training resources for students in resource-poor regions. Partnership with training institutions and computer manufacturers will facilitate increasingly widespread distribution.
- the problem
- some solutions
- vision, mission, and values
- about us
- the plan
The Problem
We have a global deficit of 4.3 million health care providers in the world.
- Global Shortage of Health Workers, Brain Drain Stress Developing Countries. JAMA 2007
- Providing the Providers — Remedying Africa's Shortage of Health Care Workers. NEJM 2007
from NEJM, 2007
This concept is important as we increase course enrollment with a limited number of clinical educators.
Paper textbooks can be expensive, difficult to transport, and can soon go out of date.
Internet resources are plentiful, but can be poor-quality, hard to find, and costly. Many students use wikipedia or YouTube as their primary source of information.
There is much more information online than front-line health care workers need to know, and this can be overwhelming when studying.
Some Solutions
Given the problem, we are working to create a quality, comprehensive, online health care textbook, freely providing content to health care students in the world. In doing so, we will work with existing universities and organizations to increase global training capacity. This, we hope, will decrease the health care provider deficit, especially in regards to primary care and public health.
Enablers are many
There are many other individuals and initiatives doing similar work. Here are some of our favourite links.
The internet is increasingly everywhere, many organizations embrace open-access, and computing devices are increasingly affordable, portable, and powerful.
fibre-optic internet connecting Africa, 2009 |
sources of quality open-access content
sources of open-access software
computers growing in portability and affordability |
Internet-based health care education works well.
- Cook DA et al. 2008. Internet-based learning in the health professions: a meta-analysis. JAMA. 300(10):1181-96.
- McKinney D, Dyck JL, Luber ES. 2009. iTunes University and the classroom: can podcasts replace professors? Computers and Education. (52):617-623.
It is possible to pare down the ever-growing mountain of scientific and educational literature and identify what students need to know.
Our Approach
We seek the integration of all these compontents - specific objectives, free, quality content, effective case-based software, and affordable, portable technologies - into one tool, used by students throughout their training and into practice.
We embrace the many open-access sources of text, image, and video that exist.
SharingInHealth acts as a scaffold, guided by our listing of competencies. Students are hired to populate this scaffold with quality, open-access resources they have identified or created.
Resources will be reviewed by knowledgeable residents, clinicians, and professors.
Competencies are derived from consensus of institutions and students from around the world, representing the lowest common denominator possible to be complete but not overwhelming. We actively solicit, and respond to, suggestions and criticisms
Content is designed to be:
- collaborative - created for and by interprofessional students
- foundational - for primary care and public health, especially in low-income and resource-poor areas
- integrated with cases, and other topics, with attention to health of body, soul, spirit, and community
Cases/simulations are the primary methodology of how students learn. These will be designed for individual or group study. A tutor guide will allow effective group facilitation.
Vision, Mission, and Values
Our vision is to increase global capacity for training primary care and public health providers, especially in resource-poor regions and for students who could otherwise not afford it.
Our mission is to:
- gather or create comprehensive, foundational open-access training resources
- facilitate the creation of cases in a region-specific manner
- work with computer manufacturers and other industries (e.g., solar panels, batteries) to provide the hardware for students in a cost-effective manner
Our values include:
Non-commercial: SiH subscribes to open-source, open-access ethics,and its resources can be used by anyone for non-commercial purposes. We are also completely not-for-profit, with no advertising.
Flexible: 'Nothing endures but change', and SiH is designed for content and technology to be inherently flexible to meet the needs of today and tomorrow, in various locales and situations.
Multimedia-rich: Examples include photos, illustrations (HIV virus), and videos (urine cultures). We incorporate as many quality, open-access resources from around the world as possible.
Wholistic: SiH's founder, David LaPierre, endeavours to follow the healing principles of Jesus, and we therefore endeavour to train health care students to care for the body, mind, and spirit. We welcome the contribution, and perspectives of all students, regardless of race, religion, worldview, or gender orientation. We see no place for judgement or condemnation in health care.
Partnership: Our technology will not replace professors and institutions, but rather strengthen the ability to train students through working together.
About Us
SharingInHealth (SiH) is designed and maintained by students, for students. It continues to grow with the widespread involvement of contributors - student authors and illustrators and professional reviewers, recruited from around the world.
Founding
SiH was founded in 2006 by David LaPierre, then a med student at Dalhousie University, and continues to grow as he continues through Family Medicine residency at the University of Western Ontario.
Board of Advisors
Our board of advisors assists with the overall direction of our efforts. We are seeking to become a non-profit organization in 2011.
- Greg Archibald MD - chief, Dalhousie University Department of Family Medicine
- Carmen Dell - student, nursing and international development studies, Dalhousie University
- Reuben Kiggundu - intern, Makerere University, Uganda
- Cheluchi Onyemelukwe, lawyer, PhD (c), health ethics law, Dalhousie University
- Brent Parr, president, Optio Publishing
Our Supporters
- Dalhousie Medical Students Society (DMSS)
- Dalhousie Student Union (DSU)
- Canadian Federation of Medical Students (CFMS)
- Makerere University Medical Student Association (MUMSA)
- Christian Medical Dental Society (CMDS)
- Education, Medical Aid, and Service (EMAS) Canada
Our History
SiH began in 2006 as the medical school notes of its founder, David LaPierre.
The Plan
Sharing in Health is one of the first open-access efforts to explore the intersection of collaborative, interactive content, software, and hardware. Our goal is to produce comprehensive resources that meet the needs of various professional programs, including medicine, nursing, and medical lab technology, and others.
Phase I: Initial Completion and Piloting
We will be piloting 4 initial subject domains in early-mid 2011:
- reproductive health
- infectious disease
- mental health
- internal medicine
Piloting will take place in Kampala, Uganda and will include the donation of 5-10 computing devices to university libraries. An analysis of the applicability of these resources will guide further development.
Phase II - Content Completion, integration with learning portfolio, formation of non-profit, translation into 2-4 languages
Following this, we will be branching out into other domains, including:
- emergency medicine
- family medicine
- pediatrics
- geriatrics
- palliative care
Technology is being developed in parallel with SiH that will act as a Learning Portfolio. This will allow individual students to track their learning, modify their resources for their specific learning needs and interests, and guide their educational trajectory. Partnership with Canadian universities will assist with the funding and implementation of learning portfolio technology.
Once educational framework is established, translation will begin, supported by bi/trilingual health care students. Videos are being designed to facilitate easy translation. It is expected that, similar to the wikipedia model, a number of associated yet distinct versions of SiH will emerge.
Phase III - Widespread dissemination of computing devices, ongoing review and development
By 2012, the cost of indivudual computers will be well under $100, and 3G access will be largely global. Partnership with computer manufacturers will allow the purchase of hundreds of thousands of computers. Funding will come from a number of sources, including individual donations, grants, and government/institution subsidies.
Ongoing review and sophistication of content and cases will continue. Videos, interactive cases, and online communication will be increasingly prevalent.
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