CONTINUED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND
INTERNET TOOLS IN EDUCATION OF HEALTH WORKERS
Zoran Stevic
University in Belgrade, Technical Faculty in Bor, VJ 12, 19210 Bor, Serbia
Dubravka Nikolovski
Institute of Public Health Pancevo, Pasterova 2, 26000 Pancevo, Serbia
Branislava Matic
Institute of Public Health of Serbia “Dr Milan Jovanovic Batut”, Dr Subotica 5, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Keywords: Internet tools, CME, Health workers.
Abstract: The Objective of this paper was to describe the current status of continued professional development of
healthcare workers in Serbia and knowledge of Internet tools being a support to their education. A cross-
sectional descriptive study was applied utilizing an interviewer-administered questionnaire. The sample
consisted of 201 health workers from two Serbian districts. Results show that 27 (13.4%) had no permanent
Internet access. At Internet based continued medical education courses participated 45 (22.4%) health
workers and only 10 (5.0%) used electronic services of Serbian Library Consortium for Coordinated
Acquisition. In any time of their professional life 155 (77.1%) had never wrote any paper. There were 73
(36.3%) users of social Internet network, 33 (16.4%) were in contact with telemedicine, 14 (7.0%) heard
something about distance e-health, 184 (91.5%) thought that has insufficient computer skills and 15 (7.5%)
has no skills. Healthcare professionals in Serbia use mostly the scientific meetings for CME but without
active participation. The research shows a great need for development of computer skills, Internet tools
knowledge and inclusion in Serbian Library Consortium for Coordinated Acquisition.
1 INTRODUCTION
Serbian Medical Chamber (SMCh) was founded in
1901 when it had 46 members, disrupting its
activities after II WW in 1945. In 2006 SMCh has
resumed its existence with more than 27000
members. Until 2010 it wasn’t obligatory to attend
Continuing Medical Education (CME). This lack of
obligation counted for The Chamber of Nurses and
Health Technicians of Serbia, as well. CME keeps
health workers updated with the new developments,
treatment methods and approaches to health issues
(Haruna, 2004). CME for health workers is a process
in which the competencies of health workers
continue to be maintained, improved and new ones
acquired, following the completion of basic training.
CME can be accessed through workshops, seminars,
clinical audits, formal lectures, multimedia
programs, telemedicine, support supervision etc.
With development of Internet tools, the accessibility
to CME and the exchange of scientific health
information became easier. This has essential
importance for education and research and a direct
impact on the development of a society (Kupryte,
2005).
Serbia is a country in transition, meaning that the
national health reform is not yet finished. The
Ministry of Science and Technological Development
has made an important step forward in enabling
researchers in diferent scientific fields, together with
health workers, to approach the scientific
information easily. It pays annual subscriptions for
the most wanted scientific services and sources.
Since 2001, Serbian Library Consortium for
Coordinated Acquisition named KoBSON exists in
551
Stevic Z., Nikolovski D. and Matic B..
CONTINUED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNET TOOLS IN EDUCATION OF HEALTH WORKERS.
DOI: 10.5220/0003153605510554
In Proceedings of the International Conference on Health Informatics (HEALTHINF-2011), pages 551-554
ISBN: 978-989-8425-34-8
Copyright
c
2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
Serbia as a member of Electronic Information for
Libraries (eIFL.net), an umbrella organization.
Nowdays, it is the best e-resource for quality
scientific data in Serbia (Electronic Information for
Libraries). Development of the eIFL.net started as a
project whose underlying idea was that the exchange
of ideas, knowledge, and information between
scientists are the basic need for science and society
development. In the 1990s, library development and
modernization were very fast in the post-socialist
countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The high
subscription costs, along with little awareness of the
electronic alternative to print subscriptions,
prevented these countries from accessing most of
international academic journals and databases.
Creation of National Library consortia in member
countries play a fundamental role in the coordination
of access, promotion, training, fund raising, and
payments for resources (Muula, 2004). At present,
Serbia has a leading role in accessing and
dissemination of scientific information in South
Eastern Europe (Ballantyne, 2006), with 35000
scientific journals in electronic and print version
(KoBSON). Serbian National Library held public
educations about KoBSON services for institutes
and researchers, but not for health workers in rural
and distance urban areas.
Objective of this paper was to describe the
current status of continued professional development
of healthcare workers and the knowledge of Internet
tools which could support their education.
2 MATERIALS AND METHODS
A cross-sectional descriptive study used an
interviewer-administered questionnaire. The sample
consisted of 201 health workers from urban zones in
two Serbian districts (South Banat and Bor): 82
(40.8%) nurses and sanitary technicians, 24 (11.9%)
nurses and sanitary technicians with college
education and 95 (47.3%) medical doctors (Figure
1). Both districts are averagely developed with good
coverage of Internet performances and availability.
Figure 1: Percentage distribution of participants.
3 RESULTS
The study participants were from primary health
care 70 (34.8%), secondary health care 125 (62.2%)
and institute of public health 6 (3.0%). There were
69 (34.3%) workers in surgical departments, 32
(15.9%) from internal departments, 16 (8.0%) from
pediatrics, 44 (21.9%) in preventive medicine and 40
(19.9%) other specialties.
Internet access at work had 48 (23.9%), at home
167 (83.1%), both at work and home 40 (19.9%), at
the other place 4 (2.0%) and 27 (13.4%) had no
permanent access. In some electronic continued
medical education course participated 45 (22.4%)
health workers, 125 (62.2%) searched Internet for
work. Only 10 (5.0%) used KoBSON libraries
electronic access (Figure 2), and from these 191
(95.0%) who didn’t used it, 86 (42.8%) had not even
heard about KoBSON (Figure 3). There were 95
(47.3%) in contact with medical news within the last
12 months: 16 (7.9%) wrote a professional article,
79 (39.3%) participated in scientific meeting, 13
(6.5%) solved tests of e-CME, and 11 (5.5%) had
some other medical news access (Table 1).
During all of their professional life-time, only 2
(0.9%) have written a book, 6 (2.7%) had more than
5 scientific or professional papers, 49 (24.4%) wrote
at least one paper for scientific meeting, but 155
(77.1%) had never written any paper (Figure 4).
Figure 2: KoBSON Web portal.
Figure 3: Percentage distribution of KoBSON users.
HEALTHINF 2011 - International Conference on Health Informatics
552
There were 73 (36.3%) users of social Internet
network, and 33 (33.7%) of them used it at least
once for business purpose. 33 (16.4%) were in
contact with telemedicine, 14 (7.0%) heard
something about distance e-health, 4 (2.0%) used
interactive internet tools for education, 184 (91.5%)
thought that has insufficient computer skills, 15
(7.5%) has no skills, 1 (0.5%) was good with
computer and 1 (0.5%) excellent. Intention to create
some kind of CME had 6(3.0%) participants, 19
(9.5) had intention, but had no experience, 45 (22.4)
had intention, but didn’t satisfy conditions.
Participants state about needs for CME were that
they need information about researches 41 (20.4%),
diagnostics 66 (32.8%), therapy 60 (29.8%),
guidelines 62 (30.8%), medical news 116 (57.7%)
and other topics 10 (5.0%). There were 41 (20.4%)
participants who prefer “traditional” presentation of
CME, 11 (5.5%) on-line, 97 (48.3) both “traditional”
and on-line and 50 (24.9%) didn’t know what to
choose.
Figure 4: Professional activity of participants.
4 DISCUSSION
AND CONCLUSIONS
There are statistical significance differences between
doctors and nurses in all questions except the use of
social networks and interest to create a CME
program. Doctors have more knowledge about
computers and they are more included in CME
activities, but not enough. The percentage in both
groups is low counting the information about
KoBSON, skills for writing a professional article,
participating in scientific meetings, usage of
telemedicine or some other internet tools in patient
environment.
In countries under the eiFL.net, there are great
differences in services they offer: some with a large
variety of services, such as in Serbia, to those with a
more informal structure where libraries were
brought together for the single purpose of jointly
licensing electronic journals. Undoubtedly, it is a
fact that the economic development of a country
depends heavily on its scientific strength and ability
to resolve problems in areas such as public health,
infectious disease, environmental management and
industrial progress (Kirsop, 2005), but precursor of
development is computer literacy, which in Serbia is
at a very low level in the working population.
Internet resources offer possibility for a dramatic
improvement in access to pertinent information, so
Serbia and other developing countries could
experience huge potential benefit, besides the rise in
the overall quality of education in schools and
universities (Brooks, 2005; Weller, 2005) Although
English – Language Proficiency has not been
analyzed, in this paper, but regarding the problems
occurring at our CME workshops, this is one of key
reasons why there are not more Serbian articles in
medical journals.
Table 1: CME and Internet tools.
CONTINUED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNET TOOLS IN EDUCATION OF HEALTH
WORKERS
553
Healthcare professionals in Serbia use mostly the
scientific meetings for CME but without active
participation. A great need exists for computer skills
development, Internet tools knowledge and inclusion
in KoBSON libraries, offering a free access to
medical journals for researchers and healthcare
workers, which are now becoming more available
due to the engagement of Serbian Ministry of
Science and Technological Development. These
CME programs have already achieved accreditation
from Serbian Health Council and started
successfully.
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