The development and implementation of an e-Portfolio for Interdisciplinary Learning: the experience in the Patient Care Project in Hong Kong

Abstract

E-portfolio is emerging as a tool for documenting progress in learning, personal and professional growth in a portable and dynamic way for a large number of students. Certain important aspects in healthcare professions’ education, such as a patient-centred approach, understanding the psychosocial aspects of health and illness, and interdisciplinary collaboration, cannot be effectively assessed by traditional fact-based methods. E-portfolio, however, offers a platform for students’ reflection and collaboration. It also has the potential to promote interaction between students and educators. Implementing new practices and technologies can be challenging to teaching and learning due to limitations in curriculum design, technology, competing priorities, and readiness-to-use in both students and faculty staff. The authors outline the development and implementation of a Patient Care Project (PCP) e-Portfolio for almost 500 undergraduate students across four health disciplines (Year 2 medicine, Year 2 nursing, Year 3 pharmacy and Year 3 Chinese medicine) in a university in Hong Kong (launched in 2014-2015). In PCP, two or three students in a group follow up a patient with a chronic condition, three times over a nine month period with the aim of understanding the patient’s physical and psychosocial condition and service utilization. Students are also expected to develop their communication and teamwork skills. The e-Portfolio consists of two components: (1) patient’s physical and psychosocial record (including the students’ analysis and interpretation) and (2) students’ learning reflections. In this presentation, the authors reflect on the challenges and issues they encountered during development and implementation. Furthermore, future directions for the evaluation and the refinement of the e-Portfolio (for instance, how to safeguard patient privacy and facilitate sharing of information, how to incorporate elements from different disciplines, and how to facilitate communication between students and teachers) will be discussed.