NZ Digital Health Academy - email discussion converted to Discourse

NathanK · 20 June 2019 09:23

This is a collation of our excellent but overgrown email group discussion; please continue this via Discourse and NOT via email reply-all so that we can all easily refer back to it for planning our Academy. The non-Discourse people should be able to reply to this via email and it will go into Discourse, or I could join you up immediately if you wish - just let me know.

Nathan (nathankershaw@gmail.com)

From: @searnshaw at Thursday, 19 June 2019 22:05
Hi,

Thank you all for a really productive videoconference on 11th June to discuss the possibility of a Digital Academy for NZ based on the NHS model.

A special thank you to Rachel Dunscombe & Alisdair Smithies for taking the time to join us from the UK and for sharing their learnings from the NHS programme. I think I can speak for us all in NZ in saying that we are very inspired and impressed by what you have achieved in the UK in such a short timeframe.

Following on from our discussion I have had a further conversation with the MOH – and they are still keen to bid for funding in the upcoming NHIP programme. We will need to move quite quickly to develop a proposal and submit the bid in the next few months.

I have scheduled a follow up Zoom meeting on July 2nd for the NZ attendees to discuss our next steps.

Many thanks

Steve Earnshaw

From: On Wed, 19 Jun 2019 at 23:16, @i.hunter wrote:

Hi Steve

Is there any chance of getting some info from Ireland (Republic) as to how they managed the Uni regs to have all universities involved?

Cheers Inga

From: On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 00:05, @karenblake wrote:

Might be helpful to look at existing leadership training in NZ- as an option to include or leverage off

@KarenDay : Have included the State Services Commission link to investigate their programme:
https://www.ldc.govt.nz/programmes-and-events/leadership-in-practice/

From: @i.hunter on Thursday, 20 June 2019 04:57

Hi everyone

FYI for further discussion.

I have made some inquiries into the regulations for a PGDip in NZ. I have been told that a PGDip must be at least 120 credits. That makes it a one-year programme on a full-time study basis. Each credit is supposed to require 10 hours of work for the student. This means a 120-credit qualification should comprise 1200 hours of work, but this covers all study-related work undertaken by the student, including any contact time, reading/study, and assessment preparation etc including any residential courses.

Looking at the booklet for the NHS Digital Academy, it is a little difficult to be certain but at an estimate:

10 hrs study time/week for estimated 46 weeks = 460 hrs (booklet gives 5-8 on average) – allows for holidays and the course does not appear to commence until at least end of Feb, but I could not find an end date.

10 days residential course at estimated 8 hrs/day = 80 hrs

Unknown time allocated to work project.

Unless these hrs are wrong (or my calculations, always a possibility) or a lot of hours (660, 14 hrs per week for 46 weeks) are allocated to the project, the programme is somewhat short on hours to be a PGDip here.

The other concern that was raised was undertaking fulltime study whilst working fulltime.

Happy to discuss further as to how we could make this work

Cheers Inga

From: @searnshaw on Thursday, 20 June 2019 06:00
Hi everyone,

Thanks for that information Inga. My personal thoughts were that we might be better to pitch the DA at PGCert level – similar to the UC PGCert in strategic leadership which has 8 10 point papers (from the MBA programme). That would make it much more achievable alongside a full-time job. At the end of the day I believe that our main aim is creating a stronger network, sharing some common skills and driving innovation, rather than necessarily providing the highest possible academic qualification – If people want a higher qualification there are lots of academic courses already out there (and many of the target audience will already have Diplomas, Masters and Doctoral degrees).

Nathan has suggested that we could speed things up by having an initial discussion on Discourse prior to the Zoom meeting – If that is something that everyone thinks will work I could put together a post with some questions/ideas to start us off?

Cheers,
Steve Earnshaw

From: On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 06:23, @karenblake wrote:

Hi Inga et al

The NHS included time undertaken in the workplace working on their digital health project- and recognised that as everyone is working in the discipline that employment would contribute hours towards the qualification.

I personally think that academia doesn’t recognise actual work in a discipline sufficiently, learning has to be broader than lectures, research, writing assignments, contact time etc. Maybe this is an opportunity for us to consider including years experience in digital health towards the qualification, especially given that the academy is initially targeted at exec and senior leaders.

Karen

From: On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 06:49, Dave Parry dave.parry@aut.ac.nz wrote:

Hi Karen,

Thanks for your comments – you have made a very important point. It is vital that such a course adds value to the people taking it and this is unlikely to happen if they are treated as students needing teaching rather than experienced professionals that want to improve their performance.
Just a quick plug for AUT but I know others do this as well AUT has a commitment that “all” its students will have workplace experience as part of their course… I completely accept that models that don’t credit experience and don’t integrate with work are not helpful, and that “work experience placements” are not the right model for senior staff. We recognise experience and learning from work in a few ways, and this seems completely appropriate to pull across:

We can recognise experience as part of the “recognition of prior learning” approach https://www.aut.ac.nz/study/applying/cross-credit-your-experience-recognition-of-prior-learning

Work-based projects, including reporting on projects e.g. implementations etc. can easily be accepted as part of the study.

Case-studies and future work can be incorporated as part of the study.

What we value is being able to help identify skills that are needed, and what skills the student/leader would like to acquire or polish up. We also strongly encourage students/leaders to work to analyse their own experience and previous projects to see if lessons learned can be discovered and how these might be similar or different to other experiences either in the group, the literature or from external people

Best wishes

Dave

From: On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 06:50, @i.hunter wrote:

Hi Karen et al

I totally agree that this is an area that should be explored further.

ACHI in its membership/fellowship take years experience into account so maybe we look at that as an option instead of an academic qualification, although ACHI like one as well.

I/we (at Massey, others will speak for their university) take work experience into account as prerequisite replacement for qualifications for entry into PGDip and Masters and PhD programmes but including it in the programmes themselves as replacement for courses can be problematic unless the courses are setup for it such as internships and professional practicum. And we encourage work experience to inform assessments as applying academic work/theory to real life makes it much more relevant in my opinion. So hopefully students find that significant work experience reduces the overall academic workload, certainly I have found that both as a student and a lecturer.

I couldn’t see in the UK Digital Academy info how they quantify work experience for the PGDip that they get but presumably the Universities that are partnering required something, maybe the people in the UK DA could advise on this as it would be useful to know. That many hours for a project would require it to be of a significant scope/size/contribution, but we have those in academia for example at 60, 90, 120 credits but not usually in a PGDip programme, they tend to form part of a Masters.

I must start writing shorter emails…

Cheers Inga

From: On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 08:21, @rachel_dunscombe wrote:

Looping in Martin martin.curley@hse.ie who is the CEO of the Irish Digital Academy.

We seem to be creating an association of health Digital Academies !
Also looping Claudia claudia.pagliari@ed.ac.uk in who will be helping me in anything we do together in future - Claudia are you ok to introduce yourself as I know not all the folks will know you

From: @i.hunter on Thursday 20 June 2019 08:47

Awesome, thanks Rachel.

Martin, dia duit agus cead míle fáilte. Hi and welcome.

As you will have gathered New Zealand is looking into a digital academy. One key question is how you got all the universities involved in the one programme rather than each running their own. Would you have any advice for us?

Go raibh míle maith agat, many thanks
Inga

From: On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 09:39, Martin Curley martin.curley@hse.ie wrote:

Dia is Muire Dhuit Inga. (God and Mary be with you)

On getting all the Universities involved, basically I pulled all the Professors together to a day long meeting to propose a national Masters in Digital Health Transformation and I was pleasantly surprised to see that every Professor bought into the idea and we spent a half day co-designing the modules. We will shortly take the revision zero design and turn it into a revision 1. Prior to the day long workshop I had met with all of the Professors separately to get their buy-in to the proposal. We still have quite some work to pull it all together but there is momentum and buy-in. I have been using some of the principles of Open Innovation 2.0 (OI2) to prepare the system for a structural change using digital technology. I recently published a book on OI2 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319628776 which might be helpful. I am also working with the industry association (IBEC) to get their buyin and support and we will likely have industry participants also on the program.

I will keep you posted as our efforts develop and happy to help in any way I can.

Ta failte romhat. (you are welcome)

Slan go foill, (bye for now)

Martin

KarenDay · 20 June 2019 09:33

Aargh, I was crafting this email and sent it when you copied everything across. Here’s what I wrote.

I think all universities are prepared to give credit for experience in lieu of a basic degree prior to enrolling in a programme. I don’t think that is the issue that the Digital Academy idea addresses.

What’s happening to varying degrees within learning programmes (aka degrees and diplomas) is the pedagogy (theory about education) of ‘situated learning’ (learning that is embedded in a person’s situation, e.g. work environment) or ‘authentic learning’ (learning arising from a person’s current and past experiences). We all use this pedagogy in our teaching to varying degrees already, e.g. designing an assessment that is based on something a person is doing/has done at work.

A different way of using situated and authentic learning is to deliberately identify something that is part of a person’s job and wrap some theory around it to take the person’s insight up a level and enable them to apply the theory in similar situations. It gives the ‘flipped classroom’ (doing prework before coming to class to discuss the prework) a twist – instead of coming to class to learn the theory the student is given resources to apply theory to something they are doing at work. This is different from ‘work-based learning’, where novices learn to apply theory in the workplace, e.g. internship, or a kind of apprenticeship). It gives a new meaning to work-based learning – the mature student takes what they’re doing anyway and applies theory to it to enhance the effect of their actions.

How to assess this kind of learning? Mmm, that’s where we need to be creative and do things differently. If the educator comes to the new ‘classroom’ (aka the student’s workplace) there are several opportunities for assessing the application of new learning in the workplace. We just need to find efficient ways of doing this so that educators don’t spend more time on the road getting to students than actually teaching/guiding/mentoring them to new levels of achievement.

Another pedagogy I see traces of in the UK Digital Academy is ‘connected learning’ (formation of networks among the student cohort, aka ‘communities of practice’, and collaborative exchange of experience and knowledge exchange). Instead of students coming to class to take notes and then go back to work to attempt to apply their learning, they use their connectedness to share their learning experiences and add value to one another’s learning. This works well with situated and authentic learning approaches because the students scaffold (support) one another’s learning from their mutual experiences.

Enough theory. I believe we can do this. It’s been done before, it can be done again.

i.hunter · 20 June 2019 10:15

Go raibh maith agat (thank you), Martin, tá ceist eile agam duit, le do thoil ( I have another question for you, please).

Is the national Masters under one University or how did you manage to get a Masters that is independent to, or else belonging to, all the Universities? In New Zealand, individual universities confer degrees, generally due a ‘numbers equals money’ separatist approach with the money from central government for student part funding going mainly to the university who ‘holds’ the qualification. So we are having to look at how we can get past this to offer a national qualification.

Sorry everyone, I’m having some fun with Irish, it’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity.

Sláinte (cheers, your health)
Inga

NathanK · 20 June 2019 12:10

I’ve also got a question for you Martin:

Where are you at in the setting up your Digital Academy journey? I can’t find anything online about it, and it would be very good for us to hear more of your story.

KarenDay · 2 July 2019 20:37

Thanks Alisdair. I wondered if you were using the learning portfolio approach – good to hear that you are. I’ve been reflecting on
how this might happen. Do you have an eportfolio portal and a framework for participants to respond to? Something like an Action Learning process and reflection diary in which they can interface theories and models with experience and observation?

I’m also interested in the value of peer review in the formative assessments. If we develop a strong community of practice (of peers)
who share their learning at certain points, they could strengthen their peer relationships further with carefully constructed peer review of one another’s work. This could be risky in the health organisation environment which can be quite toxic a lot of the
time, but one could build some safety into the process without diluting it to the point of being a waste of time.

Your thoughts?

···

alismithies

Alisdair Smithies

July 2

Dear Karen,

Great to read your post about developing and accrediting your programme! As we evolve the second iteration of the NHS Digital Academy here in the UK, we’re moving towards less content and more formative individual and group activity.
As you point out, taking the experience element of learning in work is key to accredit a programme at this level without making it content-heavy. We’re moving towards a more portfolio-based model of assessment, where generating the content is part of the workload
as well as fulfilling the assessment criteria. Formative group and individual activities, both in person at residentials and online also develop the kinds of critical appraisal skills needed to scaffold the summative assessments. Happy to discuss these approaches
further if you feel it would be useful! Also, agree entirely around nurturing the Community of Practice through connected learning - we have designed spaces into the programme, through the residentials, for participants to form peer support groups. The cohorts
also have a strong sense of collective identity through Twitter with #NHSdigitalacademy #cohort1 #cohort2 hashtags.

Kind regards,
Alisdair

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KarenDay · 4 July 2019 22:07

Thanks Alisdair. Would like to talk to you too. What date/time suits you best? New Zealand is 11 hours ahead of London.

···

alismithies

Alisdair Smithies

July 3

Hi Karen,

We’re using an off-the-shelf LMS for the programme delivery, so the journal submissions are not in a portfolio platform at present.

The programme comprises six modules - five with online content and assessment, and four residentials making up the sixth module, with mandatory attendance.

Participants are required to reflect on the content of each module in journal format. They also reflect on each of the residentials. These journal entries are assessed using a standardised rubric, evaluating what they’ve learned, what
it means for them and how they plan to apply their learning in practice.

Peer assessment is used for some of the activities in the residential learning sessions, but not so much in the online modules.

I agree there is value in adding in peer review on formative assessment but this has to be balanced with the risks. I’ve previously implemented Team Based Learning successfully with an undergraduate medical curriculum and feel this
is a model that could be used here, which provides the structure for both individual and peer-assessed contributions.

Happy to have a call sometime to go through the finer details!

Best wishes,
Alisdair

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Previous Replies

k.day

Karen Day
NZ Clinical informatics Leadership Network Member

July 2

Thanks Alisdair. I wondered if you were using the learning portfolio approach – good to hear that you are. I’ve been reflecting on
how this might happen. Do you have an eportfolio portal and a framework for participants to respond to? Something like an Action Learning process and reflection diary in which they can interface theories and models with experience and observation?

I’m also interested in the value of peer review in the formative assessments. If we develop a strong community of practice (of peers)
who share their learning at certain points, they could strengthen their peer relationships further with carefully constructed peer review of one another’s work. This could be risky in the health organisation environment which can be quite toxic a lot of the
time, but one could build some safety into the process without diluting it to the point of being a waste of time.

Your thoughts?

···
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karenblake · 4 July 2019 22:14

Have we linked back into the Ministry regarding funding and including this in the nHIP BC as a part of workforce capability?? Or are we going to propose this as a discrete activity (assuming the Simpson review will demonstrate a workforce capability issue within the clinical informatics space.

@searnshaw and @jon_herries assume you are both across this.

searnshaw · 4 July 2019 23:30

Hi,

Yes we have linked with the ministry and a subgroup of us are going to work with @jon_herries to develop a business case for funding as part of nHIP.

Cheers,
Steve

KarenDay · 7 July 2019 21:37

Thanks Alisdair. 8am would work better for me that day, if that’s OK with you. Here’s the Zoom link
https://auckland.zoom.us/j/199221059

···

alismithies

Alisdair Smithies

July 5

Super! Happy to have a call on Wednesday morning at 8.30am (NZ time) - 9.30pm on Tuesday UK time, if that works?

Best wishes,
Alisdair

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NathanK · 8 July 2019 10:41

Karen and Alisdair,

Would you mind if the rest of the group joined in too? Personally I don’t think that I’d be able to contribute much but it would be very helpful to hear your conversation. Or perhaps you could record your conversation and share it with the group as an alternative. Like a mini semi-private podcast - very trendy at the mo.

Nathan

KarenDay · 8 July 2019 10:48

The Zoom link is there for anyone to join. The purpose of the call is to talk pedagogy (education theory).

···

From: Nathan Kershaw via Digital Health Networks [discourse-notifications@digitalhealth.net]
Sent: Monday, 8 July 2019 10:41 p.m.
To: Karen Day
Subject: [dhn] [PM] Re: NZ Digital Health Academy - email discussion converted to Discourse

[https://ehealthforum.nz/user_avatar/discourse.digitalhealth.net/nathan/45/2609_2.png] nathanhttps://u1980013.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=KFL5ItWFbQhXGlA8EdfEZ7OjpLWhnuogorrzvtKUpwy3RuBNprcvgoW3gO1NPxAQR-2F4LEAz7Q-2BQ7qHtQ7NLnZQ-3D-3D_VyJj-2FlpeMpYQs5Czwo-2F20ficKf4UkmzHZanfG8RJyL-2FaUdy7b9wHd1D5s-2BxNMA-2FpaY-2BJ6jBzA8o-2F1c7GgRD53IMCYkHFkX9tMCBpHuWo9JU-2FmJYn0FHDl3k7u-2FUJ6luJ-2FAENbA3bDFRzMkL6yUwmtvyN6MasEHLMH-2B8LmNt-2FWp0P2KckaNRD-2BAHsWu39IemAs9H0Ii6fJ-2Bl4qbnyC42iq504pWsZq-2FvQ24LRWAxDrKI-3D Nathan Kershawhttps://u1980013.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=KFL5ItWFbQhXGlA8EdfEZ7OjpLWhnuogorrzvtKUpwy3RuBNprcvgoW3gO1NPxAQR-2F4LEAz7Q-2BQ7qHtQ7NLnZQ-3D-3D_VyJj-2FlpeMpYQs5Czwo-2F20ficKf4UkmzHZanfG8RJyL-2FaUdy7b9wHd1D5s-2BxNMA-2Fp-2FS0VMlRmejAi1-2FOWI9ERkSafX0QBt-2B9ZSrp6fJ7B81XF2At39J2oY-2F-2BwWQCoHowV1S2ytYYzWxH3Ky-2B-2FVaD7Y-2B96bEaMZ8JPWESjGBpd4LUWqpwaokt4XNV4OpfnKUHg5oc325qO4K-2BH6nYfCs674ocwcHwl1STNyrsVh8mobyc-3D CiLN co-chair & NZiF Moderator
July 8

Karen and Alisdair,

Would you mind if the rest of the group joined in too? Personally I don’t think that I’d be able to contribute much but it would be very helpful to hear your conversation. Or perhaps you could record your conversation and share it with the group as an alternative. Like a mini semi-private podcast - very trendy at the mo.

Nathan

To unsubscribe from these emails, click herehttps://u1980013.ct.sendgrid.net/wf/click?upn=KFL5ItWFbQhXGlA8EdfEZ7OjpLWhnuogorrzvtKUpwxbo4eD2fgdHH2PWyWmgm7jiWcc95b-2Bcyzg-2FfaAqEQBsNxYjwv9cRsAqkM-2BHGaAuhPaePFbNuucelRVoEXTMYwgUrY08rWg51nCMkGBzBV6xfhLO8SxYEc8QcKbbt6aj8c-3D_VyJj-2FlpeMpYQs5Czwo-2F20ficKf4UkmzHZanfG8RJyL-2FaUdy7b9wHd1D5s-2BxNMA-2FpVrG9u9KHh19Hg1ZkYHKmJJl0eXHBiAjsNP4lL60vc1pYX2i2C-2FzzClyM2s-2FPZaTGRtU1KQ61fQGO1r6yDw8xaqaI7p1HAxvK27C2wzbPfX49KcQ4z4-2FOgoc8fAH0rm6fFNLAD2gbNDoCU0OVP7W5dmm9iIq4zfg8JjnJ9IT0LgY-3D.

michael.hosking · 11 July 2019 01:43

Hi team,

Great discussion so far. Something I think would be great to include in our analysis would be to obtain and analyse participant feedback of the cohorts. I’d personally prefer to include data to understand which components the participants felt was most relevant and useful for their day-to-day work (which will of course vary for everyone based on their experience and background).

While we need academics to help guide the proposed course establishment, we also need feedback from alumni to understand the value it provides. ie. community and networks, education platform, knowledge and theory, practical experience and breadth of content. There may even be an option for a rotational program for participants.

I’ve been reading some the public posts on discourse from cohort1 and cohort2 but I’m guessing there is also some more formal documented feedback following course completion. @rachel_dunscombe is there a participant feedback survey document from the respective cohorts? I would expect that if these existed that they could be analysed resulting in adapting aspects of the course.

Also, we do have rich data following a workforce 2018 survey including over 190 responses which would likely help direct our approach. That said, the data collected was not intended for use beyond the CHIA-NZ working group. The approach and findings from this could act as a guide to broaden our scope when asking the public network to understand what’s missing. I’ll check with Kim Mundell to see what we can use from our survey data.

I also think we should aim to have, at least, one in-person workshop so we can more effectively discuss the problem/gap based on data, communicate our ideas and suggested approaches then plan options moving forward. I think the key idea is that we need a sustainable, sustaining model that can adapt as the world changes.

@robyn.whittaker what are your thoughts on how to approach this?

Cheers,
Michael

shayne.hunter · 19 August 2020 20:43

Thanks Nathan

I am interested to know who at Ministry of Health Steve Earnshaw has been talking to.

I am not aware of the conversation or the link to nHIP funding.

Shayne

i.hunter · 19 August 2020 21:26

Hi @shayne.hunter
Sorry I can’t remember who it was apart fro. Jon Herries but others involved would I’m sure. This all came to a halt last year apart from a meeting pre-Covid in Wellington that Kim at HINZ organised. Perhaps it is time to resume the discussion.
Cheers Inga

karenblake · 19 August 2020 23:35

This is from over a year ago- not sure why it’s resurfaced. The thinking has shifted since then away from a UK styled digital academy.

i.hunter · 19 August 2020 23:49

Agree, I thought it strange it had resurfaced suddenly, thought maybe someone had reactivated the idea. Having a conversation around current thinking in this space would be worthwhile though.