JMIR Medical Education call for papers: digital health skills and competencies for clinicians and health care professionals

JMIR Medical Education and Guest Editors: Filomena Pietrantonio, MD, FEFIM, Ismael Said Criado, MD, MSc, PhD(c), José López Castro, MD, PhD, FACP, FEFIM, and Marco Montagna, MD welcome submissions to a special theme issue examining "Digital Health Skills and Competencies for Clinicians and Health Care Professionals"

This call for papers seeks to explore and report research on digital health and informatics education, specifically the training and educational competency development required for health care professionals to effectively and efficiently practice medicine in the current digital age. This theme issue aims to publish work on curricular innovations to support such professional learning at any career stage for any health care profession. We welcome research papers that address topics with a focus on the development of digital health–related skills and competencies at any stage of a health care professional's training or clinical practice. 

Developing digital health–related skills and competencies could, for example, consider educational approaches, frameworks, or pedagogy relating to understanding, applying, implementing, and evaluating the use of digital health technologies at an individual, community, population, or society level for the benefit of human health and well-being. Such technologies may include but are not limited only to artificial intelligence (AI) applications (including machine learning [ML]) for health care, the implementation of health information technology (HIT) such as telemedicine services, or digital health at an organizational or service level.  

We also invite papers that consider the ethical, legal, or social implications of health care professionals' development of digital health skills and competencies. Physicians, specialists,  clinicians, and practitioners may arguably have a moral obligation to holistically consider the consequences, both intended and unintended, of HIT applications in routine clinical practice to uphold the oaths of providing clinical care to patients. In addition, we are interested in papers that examine the effects of digital health on health care costs and value-based medicine, the development of clinical informatics competencies, or the use of digital health technologies to improve access to health care.

Submissions are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Identifying sets of digital health core competencies at any stage of training or practice in a clinical or health care practice
• Measuring and enhancing digital literacy or eHealth literacy in the workforce of clinicians and health care professionals
• Developing strategies and educational frameworks for enhancing professional competence in digital health applications and technologies
• Teaching health professionals and clinicians about bias and the limitations of AI (including ML) applications in health care delivery
• Developing clinical informatics competencies and strategies to enhance professional knowledge as an individual practitioner or in a team-based or interprofessional care clinical or educational environment
• The role of health care professionals in understanding and mitigating ethical, legal, and social implications relating to digital health applications and their impact on the care of patients and populations, especially among populations that are systematically marginalized or made vulnerable to disparities in their health outcomes
• Developing digital health skills and competencies among clinicians and health care professionals practicing in low-resource clinical settings, including but not limited to low-income or lower-middle-income economies or countries
• The evidence basis for clinicians and health care professionals learning how to use digital tools in health care and shared decision-making, and examining the effects of such professional learning and technology adoption on clinical practice and patient, community, or population outcomes
• Novel learning platforms and modalities for clinicians and health care professionals to learn and develop digital health skills, including, for example, the use of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), or extended reality (XR); gamified learning platforms; or adaptive learning platforms
• Immersive and engaging educational experiences for clinicians and health care professionals to develop skills in, for example, visualizing and interpreting medical data in real time at various levels from individual patients to populations
• Simulations of medical scenarios involving the use of digital health tools or using immersive learning platforms to provide interactive, hands-on experiences for clinicians and health care professionals to apply digital health tools
• Online medical courses, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), mobile learning apps, "bite-sized" or on-the-go educational content, virtual conferences or events, or social media–based digital learning that offer medical courses or materials to provide clinicians and health care professionals with up-to-date education and training on the latest digital health developments
• Dissemination of basic skills in digital health applied to medical imaging, particularly clinical ultrasound: multiplane reconstruction software and ultrasound training through AI.

JMIR Medical Education welcomes original, unpublished submissions from researchers and practitioners in medicine, health care, computer science, and related fields. However, the focus of this theme issue and submitted articles is on the digital health education of clinicians and health care professionals who provide direct patient care for patients and populations. 

We invite submissions of original research papers, literature reviews, tutorials, research letters, and viewpoints. We also encourage authors to submit preprints for peer review in JMIR Medical Education. In addition, we encourage submissions that address practical challenges and opportunities related to innovative education on developing digital skills and competencies among health care professionals.

The deadline for submissions is September 30, 2023. All accepted manuscripts will be published as part of the JMIR Medical Education special theme issue on “Digital Health Skills and Competencies for Clinicians and Health Care Professionals.”

To learn more please visit: https://mededu.jmir.org/announcements/391 

 

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About JMIR Publications

JMIR Publications is a leading, born-digital, open access publisher of 30+ academic journals and other innovative scientific communication products that focus on the intersection of health and technology. Its flagship journal, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is the leading digital health journal globally in content breadth and visibility, and it is the largest journal in the medical informatics field.

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Media contact: communications@JMIR.org

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