Over sea and glen: NHS Highland/Highland Health Sciences Library/NHS Education Scotland remote and rural support project

This submission is presented under the educational and technology strands of the conference. It will consist of a summary of an NHS Education Scotland (NES) sponsored educational/clinical project. The main aim of the project is to test WebEx as a learning tool. WebEx will also be used to aid communication and facilitate collaboration within the group participating in the study. It will use iPads preloaded with a set of apps and communication software to test the viability of using such technology to support the work and learning of remote and rural practitioners in the Scottish Highlands. There are seven participants in the study. These represent a range of disciplines including: ambulance personnel, nurses, GPs and allied health professionals. Fourteen health related apps were selected to include on the iPads. These include: BNF, Dynamed Plus and the Scottish Palliative Care Guidelines. Local library services are acutely conscious of how important they are to supporting, sustaining and retaining staff. These roles are particularly important in extremely remote and rural areas where physical and electronic infrastructures are not particularly robust. This project gives the library an excellent opportunity to explore these experiences from the viewpoints of these users so that support services meeting user needs can be continued to be built up. The project will run from December 2015 until February 2016. Evaluation will be by pre and post project questionnaires, focus group discussions and action plan/reflective diaries.

This abstract was presented at the Innovative Solutions in Remote Healthcare - 'Rethinking Remote' conference, 23-24 May 2016, Inverness, Scotland.