WFPICCS has been collaborating with OPENPediatricsTM, an innovative education program in the pediatric field that shares our vision to help connect clinicians around the world that care for critically ill children, in order to advance knowledge and improve the care of children worldwide.
OPENPediatrics
OPENPediatrics is an open access online community of healthcare professionals sharing best practices from all resource settings around the world through innovative collaboration and digital learning technologies. Our mission is to leverage technology to promote worldwide sharing and exchange of knowledge about the care of sick children.
Key Features of OPENPediatrics
Information on Demand
OPENPediatrics provides academically rigorous, peer reviewed, medical education material to any clinician, at anytime, anywhere. Information available on demand includes expert lectures and demonstrations, medical device simulators such as the Ventilator Simulator and Peritoneal Dialysis Simulator, protocols, and medical calculators. OPENPediatrics’ Virtual Ventilator Simulator won an MITX Interactive Award for its advanced design and also won the Microsoft Education Award from the Tech Museum of Innovation. The Tech Awards are given out annually to recognize projects that address globally significant problems through innovative uses of technology.
Accredited and Non-Accredited Courses
OPENPediatrics brings the power and reach of online learning to medical education by supporting self-paced coursework for a large-scale audience of healthcare professionals. By providing free educational curricula in the form of non-accredited courses, OPENPediatrics opens access to this knowledge to clinicians around the world regardless of their proximity to a formal educational institution. All users who complete a non-accredited course on OPENPediatrics will receive a certificate of completion once finished.
OPENPediatrics also now offers courses for accreditation for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, and more. Courses with the CE logo offer certified continuing education (CE) credits. In addition to CE credits, OPENPediatrics offers a variety of courses that also satisfy some state board of registration in medicine license renewal requirements as well as MOC Part II, Risk Management, Nursing Contact Hours, Respiratory Therapy and Pharmacology credits.
World Shared Practice Forum
OPENPediatrics also hosts monthly World Shared Practice (WSP) Forums for physicians and nurses.
These videos feature international physician who are experts in their field and who share in OPENPediatrics’ vision of sharing the best medical knowledge with the global community. Questions are asked throughout the video, and each institution shares with the global community their practice related to the topic of the video. This is a great opportunity to learn how other critical care and pediatric providers manage similar issues worldwide.
Why OPENPediatrics?
Every year millions of children die worldwide from preventable causes. Expertise on how to treat these children exists, but is currently locked within the walls of institutions. The current system of medical education requires students to “come within the walls” to learn, thus using an approach that cannot be scaled to meet the growing need for skilled doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals worldwide. Medical missions can enhance local skill sets, but they simply cannot address the ever-growing education and training needs.
OPENPediatrics responds to this challenge: fusing world class medical expertise with leading edge communications technology and the power of the internet to create an interactive virtual training and knowledge exchange center designed to enhance the quality of care provided to critically ill children throughout the world.
Current Status
In 2018, OPENPediatrics content reached over 5.6 million via our website, YouTube, social media pages, newsletters and podcasts. To date, we have been accessed from every country and territory in the world. You can learn more about OPENPediatrics and their mission by visiting their website or watching this video.