Upskilling clinicians to effectively deliver telehealth consultations: a collaborative micro-learning pilot

Start Date

14 December 2020

End Date

30 June 2025

Project Participants

Curtin University, La Trobe University, WA Country Health Services (WACHS)

Status: Completed

Tags: allied health, capability uplift, digital skills, education and training, microlearning, nursing, primary care, professional development, regional rural remote health, telehealth, virtual care, workforce development

Opportunity 

Telehealth has become an increasingly important way of delivering healthcare across Australia. Particularly in the rapid response to COVID-19, the use of telehealth expanded rapidly, which exposed some skills and capability gaps in the workforce.  

In order to deliver effective telehealth services and optimise patient outcomes, employers are seeking flexible ways to upskill workers. However, for busy clinicians, traditional training formats can be difficult to fit around clinical responsibilities.  

This series of projects was a collaboration to design a telehealth micro-learning course for clinicians as a proof-of-concept with an associated engagement program.  

Project Objectives  

The project aimed to develop and evaluate telehealth microlearning that could strengthen healthcare professionals’ knowledge, skills and confidence. It tested with clinicians the usability of a mobile learning application (Obvious Choice’s Forget-Me-Not technology platform), the quality and effectiveness of the telehealth course content, and whether short, spaced learning could meet the needs of a diverse and time-pressured healthcare workforce.  

Three pilot cohorts tested foundational and advanced telehealth courses using the Forget-Me-Not mobile application. Participants represented nursing, allied health, medicine, education, management and digital health, with rural and remote participants accounting for almost 40% of the cohort. 

Participants who completed the courses showed statistically significant improvements across all self-rated knowledge and skills measures. The learning application was generally viewed as user-friendly and effective, while participants identified clear opportunities for greater depth, more scenarios and practical skills development in future versions. 

The project successfully translated research and pilot evidence into a standalone Effective Telehealth Delivery learning experience, a publicly available professional development product for healthcare professionals. 

Project learning was also adapted into the WA Country Health Service LMS and into a separate TAFE NSW pilot, demonstrating potential for the approach and content to be reused across health services and education settings. 

The project provides evidence that microlearning can form part of an effective digital health workforce development strategy, particularly for foundational telehealth training. It offers a model in which clinicians can learn in manageable sessions around work and other commitments, while organisations can adapt the content for their own learning environments. 

More broadly, the project demonstrates how collaborative research involving health services, universities, industry and DHCRC can progress from identifying a workforce need, through co-design and evaluation, to a market-ready digital learning experience with potential for ongoing uptake and reuse. 

Integrity, Excellence,
Teamwork and Authenticity

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