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Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals

Digital technologies are rapidly being integrated into a wide range of health fields. This new domain, often termed ‘digital health’, has the potential to significantly improve healthcare outcomes and global health equity more broadly. However, its effective implementation and responsible use are co...

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Autores principales: Wong, Brian L. H., Khurana, Mark P., Smith, Robert D., El-Omrani, Omnia, Pold, Ave, Lotfi, Amine, O’Leary, Charlotte A., Saminarsih, Diah S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8045994/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33853625
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00591-2
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author Wong, Brian L. H.
Khurana, Mark P.
Smith, Robert D.
El-Omrani, Omnia
Pold, Ave
Lotfi, Amine
O’Leary, Charlotte A.
Saminarsih, Diah S.
author_facet Wong, Brian L. H.
Khurana, Mark P.
Smith, Robert D.
El-Omrani, Omnia
Pold, Ave
Lotfi, Amine
O’Leary, Charlotte A.
Saminarsih, Diah S.
author_sort Wong, Brian L. H.
collection PubMed
description Digital technologies are rapidly being integrated into a wide range of health fields. This new domain, often termed ‘digital health’, has the potential to significantly improve healthcare outcomes and global health equity more broadly. However, its effective implementation and responsible use are contingent on building a health workforce with a sufficient level of knowledge and skills to effectively navigate the digital transformations in health. More specifically, the next generation of health professionals—namely youth—must be adequately prepared to maximise the potential of these digital transformations. In this commentary, we highlight three priority areas which should be prioritised in digital education to realise the benefits of digital health: capacity building, opportunities for youth, and an ethics-driven approach. Firstly, capacity building requires educational frameworks and curricula to not only be updated, but to also place an emphasis on interdisciplinary learning. Secondly, opportunities are important for youth to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes and gain invaluable practical experiences. Thirdly, training in digital ethics and the responsible use of data as a standard component of education will help to safeguard against potential future inequities resulting from the implementation and use of digital health technologies.
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spelling pubmed-80459942021-04-15 Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals Wong, Brian L. H. Khurana, Mark P. Smith, Robert D. El-Omrani, Omnia Pold, Ave Lotfi, Amine O’Leary, Charlotte A. Saminarsih, Diah S. Hum Resour Health Commentary Digital technologies are rapidly being integrated into a wide range of health fields. This new domain, often termed ‘digital health’, has the potential to significantly improve healthcare outcomes and global health equity more broadly. However, its effective implementation and responsible use are contingent on building a health workforce with a sufficient level of knowledge and skills to effectively navigate the digital transformations in health. More specifically, the next generation of health professionals—namely youth—must be adequately prepared to maximise the potential of these digital transformations. In this commentary, we highlight three priority areas which should be prioritised in digital education to realise the benefits of digital health: capacity building, opportunities for youth, and an ethics-driven approach. Firstly, capacity building requires educational frameworks and curricula to not only be updated, but to also place an emphasis on interdisciplinary learning. Secondly, opportunities are important for youth to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes and gain invaluable practical experiences. Thirdly, training in digital ethics and the responsible use of data as a standard component of education will help to safeguard against potential future inequities resulting from the implementation and use of digital health technologies. BioMed Central 2021-04-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8045994/ /pubmed/33853625 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00591-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Commentary
Wong, Brian L. H.
Khurana, Mark P.
Smith, Robert D.
El-Omrani, Omnia
Pold, Ave
Lotfi, Amine
O’Leary, Charlotte A.
Saminarsih, Diah S.
Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals
title Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals
title_full Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals
title_fullStr Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals
title_full_unstemmed Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals
title_short Harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals
title_sort harnessing the digital potential of the next generation of health professionals
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8045994/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33853625
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12960-021-00591-2
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