Patients Know Best is partnering with Aston University in Birmingham, UK to embed online communication and virtual patient care skills across its health professional course curricula. From this autumn term, Aston’s School of Life and Health Sciences will use PKB to teach first year pharmacy students how to interact with their patients as well as ‘talk’ to fellow health professionals.
PKB is the world’s only fully patient-controlled online medical records system and enables students to gain early clinical experience by using role-play and live online interactions to gather information from patients and respond to their questions and concerns.
In later courses, Aston will extend its use of Patients Know Best-based learning to teach students how to conduct online diagnosis and treatments and work as multi-professional online teams using an online patient-controlled approach.
The technology will be rolled out to the university’s first intake of up to 100 undergraduate doctors who are expected to begin their studies at the brand new Aston Medical School in the autumn of 2018.
Dr Fiona Lacey, associate dean, School of Life and Health Sciences, said:
“We want to familiarise our students to an online, patient-controlled environment because these skills will be very much needed: future GPs, hospital consultants and other healthcare specialists need to be confident using this technology. However, PKB can give us much more and our plans include using the platform to encourage greater inter-professional learning and working and setting multi-disciplinary tasks between students on different health professional courses.”
Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, founder and CEO of Patients Know Best said:
“The biggest barrier to doctors conducting online consultations is that no-one taught them how to do so. Medical schools are now recognising that hard clinical knowledge must be supported by a strong emphasis on online patient communication and engagement. We’re delighted that Aston is using PKB in such an innovative way and planning on extending its use in the future to encourage multi-disciplinary working.”
About Aston University
- Founded in 1895 and a university since 1966, Aston is a long established research-led university known for its world-class teaching quality and strong links to industry, government and commerce.
- The School of Life & Health Sciences is acknowledged as UK-leading, with an outstanding reputation for research, which is integrated into lectures at all levels, giving students access to the latest trends, thinking, issues and research in their field.
- Aston Medical School will admit its initial intake of MBChB undergraduates in 2018 with the first cohort of medical doctors graduating in 2023. In line with the ethos of the university, there is a strong focus on widening access. The Sir Doug Ellis Pathway to Healthcare Programme launched in April 2016 with state schools and colleges in Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country chosen to participate due to their high multiple index of deprivation. Home student places will be ring-fenced for pupils from these schools, ensuring that local young people can move into medical careers and serve the local community.