Integrating continuing professional development and graduate curriculum in a case-based interprofessional online course: Telemedicine in action

Telemedicine in Action (www.cpdkt.ubc.ca/) is an online course for physicians and graduate students focused on innovations and best practices in four facets of telemedicine (administrative, educational, clinical, research). Developed and taught by University of British Columbia's Division of Continuing Professional Development and Knowledge Translation (CPD-KT), it allowed practicing physicians to obtain Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits, while joining a multidisciplinary graduate course. It is part of an innovative online graduate program offered by the University of Victoria's Department of Health Information Sciences (program details at http://hinf.uvic.ca/programs). Course content included (1) telemedicine history; (2) current regional, provincial, national, and international telemedicine initiatives and research; (3) "best practices" in educational, clinical, and administrative settings; and (4) telemedicine program evaluation methods.