Projects
Our collaborative approach
The EdTech team enjoys working with staff from departments across the campus and beyond on EdTech projects. Here is some information on a few of our current projects and the impact we hope to make in the field of educational technology.
Advanced Learning Medicine EMR Project
Advanced Learning Medicine Video Project
CALT Kōrero
Advanced Learning Medicine
Electronic Medical Records Platform Project
Together with the surgical science team, HEDC EdTecj has embarked on an ambitious project to create a virtual learning space within which real world learning can occur. The project focuses on the 4- week cycle that 4th year medical students spend in the surgical sciences department. The intention is to create technical tools that support students as they connect with their assigned patients and walk with them during their time in hospital care. One of these technical projects is the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) platform.
Using open source EMR code, a platform has been designed in collaboration with the ITS department to allow students to take part in real world clinical note taking practices. With its calendar centric design, students use workflow processes to monitor their tasks and record their patient’s surgical journey.
The EMR platform was designed to encourage students to pivot from operating in an academic framework to a clinical framework. The system requires the students to become masters at planning their time and documenting their activities as they accompany their patient in and out of hospital care.
Feedback from both the students and clinicians piloting the platform have allowed our team to tweak and perfect its capabilities. It is hoped that this mock system will prove useful to numerous papers within the University of Otago medical programme.
Advanced Learning Medicine Video Project
During their 4 week cycle in Surgical Sciences, students studying Advanced Medicine are expected to attend the surgical procedures of their patients.
Feedback from students indicates that the confinement of the operating theatre can make it difficult for them to see clearly the procedure taking place while simultaneously trying to stay out of the surgeon’s way. The surgeons have expressed their own difficulties in juggling the role of practitioner and teacher during a surgery. These tensions can be exasperated if unexpected difficulties were to arise during a surgery. Furthermore, COVID-19 restrictions have reduced the capacity for students to observe these surgeries with access being withdrawn completely in some circumstances.
To circumnavigate these issues, the HEDC EdTech team worked with the ITS department to create a system that allows surgeries to be live streamed. Via a purpose-built fibre cable, high quality live video can be streamed into an adjacent seminar room. This will allow students to view real time surgeries with clarity.
Observations and questions can be fielded by a surgical facilitator who will be in the seminar room with the students. The cameras within the operating theatre show the room environment and a camera mounted on the surgeon’s head gear allows students to see in high definition the procedure taking place.
Live streaming surgery allows students to feel engaged in the procedure which is happening live rather than recorded for viewing later. They will be able to ask questions and see how problems are navigated as they occur. Though not in the operating theatre, they will still be able to see the procedure, possibly with more clarity than if they were.
There is international interest in this project that could, in turn, allow the live streaming to be broadcast to locations beyond Dunedin City via a secure intranet network. The first step remains to get the cable installed and test its functionality within the hospital environment itself before scaling to include locations further away.
CALT Kōrero
EdTech are proud to be serving the Committee for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT) by providing support to present this informative talk series on topics that lie at the heart of advancing learning and teaching.
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We're always keen to talk to anyone doing something to explore further the world of Educational Technologies.