Clinical decision support and e-learning will be essential if we are to achieve the goal of preventing outbreaks of infectious diseases caused by extremely dangerous pathogens. However, these resources on their own will not be enough to achieve this outcome. To achieve this outcome, resources must be integrated into undergraduate and postgraduate educational curricula, accredited as part of continuous professional development programmes, built around the knowledge and skills gaps of learners and developed using an evidence-based methodology that will enable healthcare professionals to put their learning into action for the benefit of both patients and populations. This article describes and contextualises the personal views discussed at a workshop on education and clinical decision support for healthcare professionals reacting to an infectious disease outbreak from extremely dangerous pathogens.
Healthcare professional education is a vitally important part of the healthcare system. E-learning as a means of delivering this education has grown in significance over the years. Research evidence shows that e-learning can help healthcare professionals learn new knowledge and skills. E-learning is fundamentally about education, but it is also a social phenomenon and part of a wider technological revolution. The provision of e-learning for healthcare professional development can be influenced by a number of different factors. These include political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors (PESTLE). All these phenomena influence e-learning in healthcare professional education -their degree of influence often depends on the exact context that is being discussed. A PESTLE analysis uses a framework of these macro-environmental factors that can be used in the strategic analysis of a specific domain. This paper describes an analysis of political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors that can influence e-learning in healthcare professional education.The PESTLE approach https://doi.
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