Whiston uses whiteboards for training

Medical students and staff at Whiston Hospital are being taught core clinical skills using interactive whiteboards.

The hospital, part of St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, has bought five SMART Boards from Rapid Technologies for its teaching classrooms, which are used by staff from across the hospital’s clinical skills department.

This provides a high volume of training in areas such as advanced and intermediate life support, emergency obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatric life support. Its students include undergraduates from the nearby University of Liverpool, qualified nurses, physiotherapists and doctors.

Clinical skills tutor, Nick Bennett, told E-Health Insider: “We teach very extensive syllabuses, especially on issues like ECG monitoring and blood transfusions.

“These can be complicated, and previously required a lot of different media – such as TV screens, flipcharts and PowerPoint presentations – to make them as understandable as possible.

“Using the new interactive whiteboards, we have much more flexibility and can prepare material in advance using just one system. We can teach using the electronic whiteboard and can write on the whiteboard when we want to add notes.”

The system also allows tutors to log onto the trust intranet via the whiteboard and find materials they need.

Bennett now wants to put the enhanced audio and video quality of the interactive whiteboard to use as part of a major research project he is conducting into the efficacy of Human Patient Simulators in clinical training.

“We also want to install a whiteboard in A&E, so that staff have a full view of what is happening in this busy department and can plan and manage for future cases as they arrive,” he said.

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Rapid Technologies