New Learning Tool for Remote Health Workers to be Launched

A new online learn­ing tool that helps remote health prac­ti­tion­ers sharp­en their skills with­out ever leav­ing home, will be launched by CRANAplus with the help of Hon. War­ren Snow­don on 29 June in Alice Springs.

The CRANAplus eRe­mote online learn­ing pro­gram will empow­er health pro­fes­sion­als by deliv­er­ing learn­ing mod­ules that are engag­ing, inter­ac­tive and rel­e­vant to rur­al and remote prac­tice. The pro­gram offers spe­cialised edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for nurs­es, doc­tors, para­medics and Abo­rig­i­nal health workers.

Health pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in remote regions strug­gle for access to con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly ones with rel­e­vance to the remote envi­ron­ment. ​“Trav­el cost and time away from work and fam­i­ly are major inhibitors, and that’s only if relief staff is avail­able to take over their duties for a few day,” says CRANAplus Pres­i­dent Christo­pher Cliffe. ​“The nature of remote work means that many prac­ti­tion­ers work in pro­fes­sion­al as well as geo­graph­ic iso­la­tion. Hav­ing a way to sharp­en skills with­out trav­el­ing halfway around Aus­tralia is a great ben­e­fit to remote prac­ti­tion­ers and the peo­ple who they serve.

These train­ing mod­ules are a sup­ple­ment to hands-on clin­i­cal train­ing and offer an oppor­tu­ni­ty for clin­i­cians to up skilling and refresh their clin­i­cal knowl­edge base. It is not intend­ed as replace­ment for sol­id clin­i­cal training.

The con­tent of the pro­gram will be based on the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed in the CRANAplus First Line Emer­gency Care (FLEC) cours­es, the online sur­vey results and the com­pe­ten­cies that are deemed essen­tial for safe prac­tice. The pro­grams will be flex­i­ble in their deliv­ery modes and self-paced to allow the indi­vid­ual health pro­fes­sion­al to com­plete in their own time frame.

The mod­ules will encour­age health pro­fes­sion­als to make con­text spe­cif­ic deci­sions with direc­tion­al feed­back that encour­ages them to reflect upon their deci­sions and devel­op their crit­i­cal think­ing skills in the remote clin­i­cal setting.

In order to meet the chal­lenge of over­com­ing tra­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers to con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion CRANAplus has recog­nised the need for health pro­fes­sion­als to access inno­v­a­tive edu­ca­tion­al deliv­ery meth­ods. CRANAplus has been deliv­er­ing spe­cial­ized train­ing to remote health prac­ti­tion­er for over 15 years. ​“This organ­i­sa­tion is con­stant­ly look­ing for ways to bet­ter serve the sec­tor and this is our lat­est offer­ing,” says Mr. Cliffe.

CRANAplus is a mem­ber­ship organ­i­sa­tion whose sole focus is remote health and their aim is to sup­port remote health work­ers striv­ing to pro­vide an opti­mal stan­dard of health care to their clien­tele. With fund­ing from the Com­mon­wealth Depart­ment of Health and Age­ing, they pro­vide clin­i­cal and cul­tur­al aware­ness train­ing as well as sup­port for mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary health work­ers and their fam­i­lies work­ing in remote or iso­lat­ed regions of Australia.

CRANAplus is ded­i­cat­ed to the devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of safe, high qual­i­ty pri­ma­ry health­care to remote and iso­lat­ed areas of Aus­tralia through the edu­ca­tion and sup­port of remote health prac­ti­tion­ers and advo­ca­cy for the issues affect­ing them and the peo­ple in their care.

The launch event is being held at 2:30pm on Tues­day 29^th June at the Right Move­Train­ing office at ³⁄₂ Gre­go­ry Tce, in Alice Springs.