eHealth Eurocampus: An innovative educational framework to train qualified professionals in the emerging ehealth sector

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the results of an initiative called the eHealth Eurocampus (http://ehealtheurocampus.eu), whose main goal is to define a framework to prepare professionals for the eHealth work environment. To do so, three main activities have been organized: develop eHealth learning materials, international intensive study programs for both health science and IT students and international training seminars for researches and professors.

The eHealth Eurocampus project is an EU-funded Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership for higher education (September-2016 / August-2019) which aims at preparing qualified professionals able to cope with the challenge of “fostering a spirit of innovation in eHealth in Europe as the way forward to ensure better health and better and safer care for EU citizens, a more skilled workforce, more efficient and sustainable health and care systems, new business opportunities” (EC eHealth Action Plan 2012-2020).

The consortium of the eHealth Eurocampus project along with the participants of the designed activities have created an original eHealth teaching-learning framework where university professors, students, researchers, and clinicians are able to share their experiences and knowledge with the aim of improving the skills of graduates in order to improve their employability.

These are the organized activities and the topics that have been covered: - eHealth learning materials. Five courses of 6 ECTS each have been developed in the following topics: innovation and entrepreneurship, IT for a longer independent life, robotics for health care, graphics and medical imaging and eHealth applications and tools. - Intensive study programs. Three international summer schools for both health and IT students have been organized with an interdisciplinary approach. The first one deal with innovation and entrepreneurship in eHealth. The second one is focused on applications and tools for longer independent life. And robotics, graphics and medical imaging are covered in the third one. The summer schools have proven to be the best testbed for the learning materials and for innovative teaching methodologies in interdisciplinary context. - Training seminars. When you face the training of qualified eHealth professionals it is critical to have good educators. Two training seminars have been organized with the goal of share experiences and knowledge among practitioners, university teachers and researches of the health and IT fields. The topics covered in the seminars are eHealth Teaching Challenges and Accessibility, Inclusion, and Rehabilitation using IT, respectively.

In this paper, we will introduce in detail the different activities carried out, the results and conclusions of this teaching-learning framework and how the different stakeholders would take advantage of it.