Introduction and Current Status of Technology in Teaching and Learning of Allied Healthcare Students

Abstract

Allied healthcare professionals are an integral part of multidisciplinary healthcare teams requiring highly skilled and competent members from every discipline. Clinical and allied health education in Australia is challenged by increasing student numbers, changing healthcare practices, and service pressures impacting the clinical training of students. There is a need to optimise the effectiveness and efficiency of the way students develop their professional skills. New technological approaches deliver student-centered education involving work-integrated learning. This chapter covers different strategies developed and implemented over time, merging various technologies in an innovative manner providing better standardized skills and competencies to more students within limited resources to prepare them for a global inter-professional multidisciplinary healthcare team providing efficient service to society. It will also provide future directions to adapt technology from the non-healthcare industry to healthcare training and share some strategies of bringing the workplace to the classroom.