COMPDIG-SALUT is a project promoted by the Catalan Department of Health and coordinated by the TIC Salut Social Foundation, an EHTEL member.
Digital competences for health professionals
It arose with the aim of addressing three objectives:
- Defining a specific digital competence framework for health professionals.
- Creating a specific evaluation and accreditation model for health professionals.
- Drawing up actions to train and qualify health professionals in digital competences.
Where are we now?
One of the results of the project is the Digital Competences framework for Health Professionals. In the face of the digital transformation in the field of health, it defines specific digital skills for health professionals to acquire in order to practice a healthcare profession or occupation in a safe, civic and critical eye. A description of the framework is available in Catalan.
In addition, an exploratory study was conducted in 2021 to assess the digital competence level of health professionals working in Catalonia. The study results provided valuable information regarding the digital literacy of more than 800 healthcare professionals from Catalonia and their training needs. Nearly all participants had either the basic or the intermediate level of competence, indicating that there was still room for improvement in training.The results are published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Moreover, COMPDIG-Salut developed an evaluation model for the developed Digital Competences framework specific for healthcare professionals. The model was tested in 2022 with health professionals. The results showed that the evaluation model is valid, but confirmed the need to reinforce training.
Where are we heading?
The results of these studies has served Catalonia as a guide to reformulate the accreditation and training strategy for healthcare professionals.
Currently, COMPDIG-Salut continues its path with a new two-year project funded by the Technical Support Instrument of the European Union. This programme supports all 27 of the Member States in their reform, resilience, and recovery.
The results expected from this new project are:
- To define a Catalan strategic training plan to upskill all healthcare workforce.
- To define education and training itineraries.
- To develop training content and materials for health professionals.
These results will help to standardise, assess and improve the digital skills of healthcare professionals throughout Catalonia.
As Elisenda Reixach, project manager of the COMPDIG-Salut initiative, says:
"Catalonia is really focused on healthcare professionals' digital health skills. We're all about developing people's competences, new skills, new training certificates, a new training action plan, and mapping out how all this training will take place. Watch out for our initiatives over the coming two years.We are happy to share our experiences."
