Serious Shortage Of Trained Healthcare Professionals, Says Who Report

Do you wish to build a thriving career in the healthcare industry? But do you have the necessary skills and knowledge? With growing costs of college education, it is now becoming increasingly difficult for most young people to pursue undergraduate degrees, especially in health professional education. So what other academic options do you have?

The Smartest Solution

Online learning or eLearning is one of the best ways that can help you to develop the necessary skills required to become a healthcare professional. In fact, according to a new research, online education can enable millions of learners to pursue a career in the healthcare sector worldwide. The study, conducted by Imperial College London (ICL) and commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO), focused on analyzing the efficiency and value of online learning for undergraduate healthcare education.

Need For Healthcare Training

As per another recent report published by WHO there is a global shortage of almost 7.2 million healthcare professionals and the finding estimate that the number is set to rise further in future. The team of researchers at Imperial College London considered online education as a feasible solution to train more professionals as learners only require a reliable internet connection to pursue an undergraduate programme. Moreover, the course content can be accessed easily online as well as offline through USB flash drives and CD-ROM.

The findings, which were collected from over 108 studies, revealed that learners can develop the necessary knowledge and skills through online learning, both online and offline, in an affordable, convenient and flexible way. In fact, the study suggests that students can learn just as effectively as or even better than traditional learning methods.

Taking A Blended Approach

However, it was recommended that a mix of traditional education and online learning, similar to the blended learning approach, will prove to be the most advantageous solution for training aspiring healthcare professionals like doctors and nurses. Simply pursuing E-learning programmes might not prove to be as useful as trainees need to develop practical skills as well.

Dr. Josip Car of the School of Public Health at Imperial College London commented “E-learning programmes could potentially help address the shortage of healthcare workers by enabling greater access to education, especially in the developing world where the need for more health professionals is greatest.”

Expanding The Reach Of Education

He added that there are certainly many challenges which we need to overcome, like quick and easy access to computers, fast and reliable internet connections, offering high quality content and learning resources. Dr. Car requested universities and colleges to offer online programmes and other online resources on a wide scale so that students from around the globe can easily access them.

We hope that online education provides the necessary solution to train and teach aspiring healthcare workers on a global scale.

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