Postgraduate Course: Digital technologies in health and social care (HEIN11043)
Course Outline
| School | Deanery of Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences |
College | College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
| Course type | Online Distance Learning |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | Health and social services face extensive challenges due, in part, to ageing populations and increased prevalence of chronic diseases in both developed and low and middle-income countries. The challenges mentioned above affect both countries with extensive health and social care systems and lower resource countries where local specialist care and diagnostics may not be available.
The digitisation of health, social and care services and the widespread availability of digital technologies have facilitated the emergence and deployment of digitally-enabled care. Digital technologies are increasingly seen as a potential solution to many of the current challenges facing the health, social and care service sectors. This course aims to provide students with an understanding of how digital technologies can be used to improve service user wellbeing and support effective and efficient person-centred health, social and care services. |
| Course description |
Digital technologies play an increasing role in health, social and care services, with many people relying on support from digital technologies. Digital technologies encompass a wide range of digitally-enabled health, social and care services, including remote health, care, coaching, rehabilitation, diagnostics, monitoring, fitness and smart-homes. Digital technology services involve the convergence of health systems, digital media, network technologies, mobile devices, sensors and wearables, which i) provides data for reporting and analysis for administrators, decision makers and research ii) provides health and social services professionals and service users with, sometimes, real-time access to data and information to support the delivery of care, and iii) allows service users to manage their health and care needs in more convenient ways.
Course outline
This course will provide a general introduction to concepts that underpin digital technologies applied in health, social and care services. The course will then explore how data-driven solutions shape the digital health and care technologies landscape. Next, the benefits, operation and challenges of digital technologies and how they can be used to support self-care and service user empowerment, inform decision making and reduce the burden on care services will be discussed. The course will then explore digital technologies-related to legal, ethical, privacy, data ownership and social issues. Finally, the course will examine the various barriers to digital technologies' deployment, such as concerns about usability, quality, reliability and security issues, and financial or infrastructural limitations that may prevent large scale deployment.
Experts in the field will use real-life case studies from health, social and care services to highlight existing evidence of effectiveness and acceptability and explore how personal roles and responsibilities need to change, aspects of data sharing, privacy and screening, and examine the legislation, safeguarding, and regulatory requirements relating to digital technologies.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2022/23, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Flexible |
| Course Start Date |
08/08/2022 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 5,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 1,
Online Activities 35,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 5,
Formative Assessment Hours 5,
Revision Session Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
46 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 % |
| Feedback |
Feedback is information provided to the students about their learning relative to learning outcomes. The two main types of feedback are formative and summative. Formative feedback is generated to engage learners to constantly reflect on how they can approach, orient and evaluate learning, which leads to successful learning outcomes. Summative feedback provides an evaluation of how much a student has learned at the end of the course through a final assessment. Formative feedback will be provided throughout the course, for example, during live question and answer sessions, quizzes, and discussion boards. A formative task will also be offered before the student submitting their summative assessed course work. All assignments will be marked, and feedback is provided within fifteen working days (where possible). |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of how digital technologies can be implemented to improve and support person-centred health, social and care service delivery.
- Apply logical, analytical and problem-solving skills to recognise how, when and where digital technologies can be implemented and identify the barriers to deploying digital technologies within and across different systems, settings and countries.
- Demonstrate the ability to effectively communicate how digital technologies interact across systems with peers, service users and a wide range of audiences in health, social and care and industry.
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Reading List
Book:
D. Cowan and L. Najafi (2019)' Handbook of electronic assistive technology.
Report:
K. Taylor (2015) Connected health. How digital technology is transforming health and social care. Deloitte: London, UK.
Article:
A.C.L. Leonardsen, C. Hardeland, A.K. Helgesen and V. A. Grøndahl (2020) Patient experiences with technology-enabled care across healthcare settings- a systematic review. BMC Health Service Research 20, 779 (2020).
Specific journal articles will also be included in the course information at the start of the course. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1) Mindsets:
Enquiry and lifelong learning
Students on this course will be encouraged to seek out ways to develop their expertise in digital technologies. They will also be encouraged to strive for excellence in their professional practice and to use established and developed approaches to resolve ethical challenges and data ownership issues as they arise in health and social care systems.
Aspiration and personal development
Students will be encouraged to draw on the quality, depth and breadth of their experiences to expand their potential and identify areas in which they wish to develop and grow. Students will also be encouraged to understand their responsibility within and contribute positively, ethically and respectfully to the health and social care community while acknowledging that different students and community members will have other priorities and goals.
Outlook and engagement
Students will be expected to take responsibility for their learning. Students will be asked to use their initiative and experience, often explicitly relating to their professional, educational, geographical or cultural context, to engage with and enhance the learning of students from the diverse communities on the programme. Students will also be asked to reflect on the experience of their peers and identify opportunities to enhance their learning.
2) Skills:
Research and enquiry
Students will use self-reflection to seek out learning opportunities. Students will also use the newly acquired knowledge and critical assessment to identify and creatively tackle problems and assimilate the findings of primary research and peer knowledge in their arguments, discussions and assessments.
Personal and intellectual autonomy
Students will be encouraged to use their personal and intellectual autonomy to critically evaluate learning materials and exercises. Students will also be supported through self-directed learning, discussion boards and collaborative activities to critically evaluate concepts, evidence and experiences of peers and superiors from an open-minded and reasoned perspective.
Personal effectiveness
Students will need to be effective and proactive learners that can articulate what they have learned, and have an awareness of their strengths and limitations, and a commitment to learning and reflection to complete this course successfully.
Communication
Effective data scientists' practitioners in the health and social services sector require excellent oral and written communication, presentation and interpersonal skills. The structure of the interactive (problem-based learning examples, discussion boards and collaborative activities) and assessment elements incorporate constant reinforcement and development of these skills. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Miss Michelle Evans
Tel: (0131 6)51 5440.
Email: michelle.evans@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Laura Miller
Tel: (0131 6)51 5575
Email: Laura.Miller@ed.ac.uk |
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