Remote medical education via Internet enhanced services - the REMEDIES platform for distant training

Continuing medical education is considered as a very important aspect in the development of skills of practicing physicians and the introduction of new concepts and developments in health care provision. Studies have shown that conventional CME techniques including self-studying and lecture attending have limited impact on clinical practices. The world wide web provides a very efficient and cost-effective delivery system for conveying anywhere and anytime multimedia information to large user groups. Although there are a number of CME web sites available today, the majority of them are static and text-based thus not offering interactive functionality and multiple content. To exploit modern telematics technologies and within the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci programme, the REMEDIES project developed an interactive web-based distance-training infrastructure. The REMEDIES system incorporates two training modules - a web-based training platform and a teleconference training platform. The system has been validated in terms of technical performance and user functionality in a controlled target group comprising of young medical doctors and medical students in the specific areas of radiology and laparoscopic surgery. The results of the trial have demonstrated the compliance of the system to the defined functional requirements and the potential usefulness to the defined training goals. Trial results have also demonstrated the need of extension of the educational material within the platform especially for the purposes of continuous education.