 |
James Harper, M.D. |
The show, which originates from Children’s Memorial Hospital every Friday at 8 a.m., is now celebrating its 10th year anniversary. It has 3,600 registered users from 108 countries around the world.
Using video streaming technology at UNMC, the show is posted on the Internet at www.unmc.edu/Pediatrics/GrandRounds where health care professionals in any country can log-on and learn the latest on MRSA, postpartum depression, sports medicine or some other subject among the vast variety of topics covered during the seminars.
Registered users can earn continuing medical education (CME) credits for free through Children’s Hospital.
“That’s the beauty of it. Physicians can sit at home on the weekend and earn these credits,” said James Harper, M.D., associate professor of pediatric hematology-oncology and associate chairman for medical education in pediatrics at UNMC. He also is director of continuing medical education at Children’s Hospital.
The Web site, Dr. Harper’s brainchild, was one of first and few in the world 11 years ago. He wanted to help rural Nebraska physicians earn their CME’s without having to travel great distances to attend costly conferences. Physicians are required to complete 50 CME credits every two years.
“At first, physicians were leery of the technology, but it soon caught on,” Dr. Harper said. “Now we have more than 1,800 registered users in every state in the U.S. and the territories,”
His dream of reaching rural physicians in Nebraska was realized as well, with 287 users from 33 of the 93 counties in Nebraska.
The reach to other countries is phenomenal. Users log on from India, Canada, Sri Lanka, Sudan and many other countries.
The majority of registered users are pediatricians, but physicians from other disciplines, such as family medicine, psychiatry, internal medicine, surgery and OB/GYN also log on.
|
|
HON was established in 1996 to promote the effective and reliable use of the new technologies for telemedicine in health care around the world. It is one of most respected not-for-profit portals to medical information on the Internet.
UNMC’s site was launched Aug. 28, 1998, after a year of planning, Dr. Harper said. A $36,000, two-year grant from the John A. Wiebe, Jr. Foundation funded computer storage space for the program.
Personnel from UNMC’s information technology service provided critical technology support. They were:
- Joe Ziskovsky, system administrator;
- Melissa Diers, instructional designer;
- Anne Faylor, programmer; and
- Gary Beck, education and research coordinator.
Patti Davis, office associate in UNMC pediatrics, and Mary Noah in continuing education at Children’s Hospital, also provided essential support.
Several other academic departments at UNMC, as well as other institutions such as the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, have used UNMC’s site as a model for launching their own grand rounds broadcast.
The UNMC Pediatric Grand Rounds can be downloaded off of iTunes. To listen to grand rounds on your computer or ipod, first download the iTunes browser on your computer from www.apple.com/itunes. Search the iTunes store for UNMC Pediatric Grand Rounds, then click on desired show. Soon video podcasts of the seminars will be available.
“It’s been exhilarating to watch how the site has grown in popularity,” Dr. Harper said. “I’m really excited about our new venture onto iTunes.”