The Care Informatics and Technologies Project - Enhancing Capability, Motivation and Opportunities in Digital Health Among Health Professionals and Students

Abstract

A change in the behaviour of the current and future workforce in regards to how they approach the needs and challenges in the healthcare sector is necessary to transit from the current curative paradigm in health to a new one focused on prevention and rational use of resources. Digital health is instrumental in the adoption of this new paradigm as most e-health applications focus on a preventive and personalized approach, on lifestyle changes (e.g. fitness and nutrition), health literacy and self-tracking allowing consumers to manage their own heath. The Capability-Opportunity-Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model and the Behaviour Change Wheel framework (BCW) have been applied to characterise interventions for behaviour change in health professionals. They provide a systematic way of characterising interventions and enable their outcomes to be linked to mechanisms of action. Acknowledging the potential of informatics and technologies in current and emerging health issues and the importance of focusing on care needs rather than on the development of technologies per se to achieve meaningful clinical outcomes, the College of Nursing and Health Sciences (CNHS) in Flinders University is undertaking the Care Informatics and Technologies project. This priority project aims to build capacity in digital health within the College's students and staff, so that informatics, digitisation and technologies become part of clinical learning, research and ongoing clinical practice. We aim to report the protocol of this project and discuss it in the context of the expected change in behaviour of health professionals that is deemed necessary to address the Australian digital health agenda.

Keywords: Digital health; behaviour change; education; workforce.