The authors provide an introduction to e-learning and its role in medical education by outlining key terms, the components of e-learning, the evidence for its effectiveness, faculty development needs for implementation, evaluation strategies for e-learning and its technology, and how e-learning might be considered evidence of academic scholarship. E-learning is the use of Internet technologies to enhance knowledge and performance. E-learning technologies offer learners control over content, learning sequence, pace of learning, time, and often media, allowing them to tailor their experiences to meet their personal learning objectives. In diverse medical education contexts, e-learning appears to be at least as effective as traditional instructor-led methods such as lectures. Students do not see e-learning as replacing traditional instructor-led training but as a complement to it, forming part of a blended-learning strategy. A developing infrastructure to support e-learning within medical education includes repositories, or digital libraries, to manage access to e-learning materials, consensus on technical standardization, and methods for peer review of these resources. E-learning presents numerous research opportunities for faculty, along with continuing challenges for documenting scholarship. Innovations in e-learning technologies point toward a revolution in education, allowing learning to be individualized (adaptive learning), enhancing learners' interactions with others (collaborative learning), and transforming the role of the teacher. The integration of e-learning into medical education can catalyze the shift toward applying adult learning theory, where educators will no longer serve mainly as the distributors of content, but will become more involved as facilitators of learning and assessors of competency.
FULL Within Medical 2006
Among its many effects, the law established an independent public authority, the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, also known as the Massachusetts Health Connector. The Connector acts as an insurance broker to offer free, highly subsidized and full-price private insurance plans to residents, including through its web site. As such it is one of the models of the Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges. The 2006 Massachusetts law successfully covered approximately two-thirds of the state's then-uninsured residents, half via federal-government-paid-for Medicaid expansion (administered by MassHealth) and half via the Connector's free and subsidized network-tiered health care insurance for those not eligible for expanded Medicaid. Relatively few Massachusetts residents used the Connector to buy full-priced insurance.
The implementation of healthcare insurance reform began in June 2006, with the appointment of members of the Connector board and the naming of Jon Kingsdale, a Tufts Health Plan official, as executive director of the Connector. On July 1, MassHealth began covering dental care and other benefits, and began enrolling children between 200% and 300% of the poverty level. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved the state's waiver application on July 26, 2006, allowing the state to begin enrolling 10,500 people from the waitlist for the MassHealth Essential program, which provides Medicaid coverage to long-term unemployed adults below the poverty line.[40] In 2006, the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy issued regulations defining "fair and reasonable" for the fair share assessment. The regulations provide that companies with 11 or more full-time equivalent employees will meet the "fair and reasonable" test if at least 25 percent of those employees are enrolled in that firm's health plan and the company is making a contribution toward it. A business that fails that test may still be deemed to offer a "fair and reasonable" contribution if the company offers to pay at least 33 percent of an individual's health insurance premium.[41]
Provincial and territorial governments are responsible for managing and delivering health services, including some aspects of prescription care, as well as planning, financing, and evaluating hospital care provision and health care services [5]. For example, British Columbia has shown its commitment to its health care program by implementing an increase in funding of CAD 6.7 million in September 2003, in order to strengthen recruitment, retention and education of nurses province-wide [6]. In May 2003, it was also announced that 30 new seats would be funded to prepared nurse practitioners at the University of British Columbia and at the University of Victoria [6]. Recently the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care announced funding for additional nurse practitioner positions within communities. Furthermore, most provinces and territories in Canada have moved the academic entry requirement for registered nurses to the baccalaureate level, while increasing the length of programmes for Licensed Practice Nurses to meet the increasing complexity of patient-care needs. Several provinces and territories have also increased seats in medical schools aimed towards those students wishing to become family physicians [7].
Compared to the United States, Canada and developing countries, Germany is in a special situation, given its surplus of trained physicians. Due to this surplus, the nation has found itself with a high unemployment rate in the physician population group. This is a human resources issue that can be resolved through legislation. Through imposing greater restrictive admissions criteria for medical schools in Germany, they can reduce the number of physicians trained. Accompanying the surplus problem is the legislative restriction limiting the number of specialists allowed to practice in geographical areas. These are two issues that are pushing German-trained physicians out of the country and thus not allowing the country to take full advantage of its national investment in training these professionals.
Private personal health care spending growth will grow more slowly, decelerating from 7.5 percent in 2004 to 7.2 percent in 2005 due to the anticipated slowdown in medical price inflation. Further, a shift in drug payments away from private insurance and into Medicare due to the implementation of Medicare Part D will cause growth to decelerate sharply to 3.9 percent in 2006. However, growth is expected to rebound and peak at 7.7 percent by 2008, and then decelerate through 2015.
The economic impact of drug abuse on businesses whose employees abuse drugs can be significant. While many drug abusers are unable to attain or hold full-time employment, those who do work put others at risk, particularly when employed in positions where even a minor degree of impairment could be catastrophic; airline pilots, air traffic controllers, train operators, and bus drivers are just a few examples. Quest Diagnostics, a nationwide firm that conducts employee drug tests for employers, reports that 5.7 percent of the drug tests they conducted on individuals involved in an employment-related accident in 2004 were positive. Economically, businesses often are affected because employees who abuse drugs sometimes steal cash or supplies, equipment, and products that can be sold to get money to buy drugs. Moreover, absenteeism, lost productivity, and increased use of medical and insurance benefits by employees who abuse drugs affect a business financially.
As a full-service hospital for adults and children with an attached medical office building, IU Health North Hospital brings together physician offices, inpatient beds and operating rooms in a state-of-the-art facility where compassionate caregivers provide superior patient treatment. All patient rooms are private to optimize comfort for each individual and their family, and our wealth of services for adults and children ranges from cardiovascular and orthopedic care to maternity and cancer care. 2ff7e9595c
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