Abstract:

With the forthcoming introduction of the national prescribing skills assessment for all final-year medical students, Manchester Medical School (MMS) identified a need for prescribing teaching, relevant and accessible to all students. As MMS has supplied all clinical year undergraduates with iPads to enhance their learning, an iBook was developed to provide an interactive, universally accessible means of delivery.

Safe and effective prescribing is a complex task; it requires several facets of understanding and expertise, carefully balanced and fitted together. These include:
• Basic and applied pharmacology knowledge
• Application of therapeutic knowledge
• Skills to critique evidence regarding medication options
• Competent balance of risks and benefits of treatment options
• Calculation skills
• Effective communication with patients and the healthcare team
• Effective and safe use of medication information resources

The University of Manchester has already moved from traditional didactic teaching and uses enquiry-based methods to complement different learning styles of students. This work takes things one-step further, using technology to enhance learning in new and compelling ways and crucially, it places the student central to the learning experience.

Members of staff across institutions and professions helped create an interactive iBook, supporting skills and knowledge development related to prescribing. A learning technologist from the MIMAS (national Data centre) team developed interactive chapter elements, including video clips, graphics, 3D models and interactive HTML self-assessment widgets. These components produce an active learning environment for students and were created using formats that could be delivered via iPads as an iBook, or transferred for delivery in other online mediums such as virtual learning environments.

A collaborate approach was undertaken to develop the iBook, through face-to-face and virtual meetings and cloud computing. This facilitated expertise sharing and inter-professional working. The development of the prescribing iBook presents an exciting opportunity to engage with students across healthcare professions to augment their prescribing learning in a current, relevant and easily adaptable format.

The team followed an iterative development approach using evaluation from tutors and student focus groups to inform future improvements. Where possible, open source APIs and software were implemented to allow for a more sustainable strategy going forward, meaning the methodology and workflow employed could easily be replicated in other disciplines.

Keywords:

Prescribing, iBooks, e-learning, learning styles, iterative development, enquiry-based learning, iPads, mobile learning.