Online wound care Masters modules win major international award
Pictured are Huddersfield award winners Leanne Atkin (centre left) and Professor Karen Ousey (centre right) with presenters Dr Stuart Flanagan and Ellie Lindsay OBE (far right).
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 14:51:00 BST
Professor Karen Ousey and Lecturer-Practitioner Leanne Atkin receive the award for Contribution to Education in Wound Care in Florence
AN innovative University of Huddersfield course that enables healthcare professionals in the UK and around the world to acquire added expertise and qualifications via internet study has received an international award. It was bestowed at the 5th Congress of World Union of Wound Healing Societies, held in Florence, Italy, where it attracted hundreds of delegates.
Present at the conference to receive the award for Contribution to Education in Wound Care were Professor Karen Ousey and Lecturer-Practitioner Leanne Atkin of the University’s School of Human and Health Sciences. Experts in wound treatment and care, they devised two Masters-level online modules – Tissue viability and wound management and Management of leg ulceration.
“About five years ago we changed to an online provision of education for nursing, podiatry and allied health professionals, because we saw that clinicians were experiencing more and more difficulty getting out of the workplace at specific times to attend the classroom,” said Ms Atkin.
The two modules were the first online courses at the University of Huddersfield and were a challenge to begin with, she admitted.
“It was a completely different way of teaching and you lose that classroom interaction. But the modules have gone from strength to strength and numbers have increased every year because we are able to cast our net far and wide.”
In addition to UK participants, there has also been increasing take-up overseas – from countries such as Greece and Cyprus.
The two online modules are both worth 30 Master’s credits and could be the basis for a full degree after further study. In addition to online course work – including interactive tasks – there are fortnightly live webinars that create a virtual classroom. But even with these there is flexibility, for they are recorded for the benefit of students unable to take part.
At the culmination of the course, candidates submit an online portfolio, validated by a local mentor, demonstrating their enhanced clinical skills.
Ms Atkin and Professor Ousey submitted details of the course to the awards committee of the World Union of Wound Healing Societies and a panel of judges decided it was the winning entry in the education category.
When the latest edition of the conference took place in Florence, there were further honours for Huddersfield. Leanne Atkin was Highly Commended in the Cost Effective Care category, in recognition for a clear and simple leg ulceration pathway she has developed in tandem with Joy Tickle. The duo also exhibited a poster that described their project.
Also, Amit Gefen – Professor of Biological Engineering at the University of Tel Aviv and now a Visiting Professor at the University of Huddersfield – won the award for advances in pressure area care.
One of the events at the five-day conference was a symposium on new research and solutions to post-operative wound care challenges that was co-chaired by Professor Ousey, who heads the University of Huddersfield’s Institute of Skin Integrity and Infection Prevention.
