Technology enhanced health professions education (TEHPE) in Eastern and Southern Africa: a Needs Assessment

Background The COVID-19 pandemic escalated the adoption and development of technology-enhanced health professions education during large-scale lockdown mandated in multiple countries. Although the use of technology is a hallmark of the education of healthcare professionals, including clinical education, challenges including poor availability, lack of skills and support for technology-enhanced learning and teaching are reported. This study aimed to assess the needs for technology enhanced health professions education in higher education institutions in Eastern and Southern Africa. Methods This was a descriptive, cross-sectional survey to yield quantitative and qualitative data from healthcare students, educators and managers. The Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition Model, our conceptual framework, underpinned our study and served as an organizing framework. Results Twelve program directors, 35 educators and 264 students responded from undergraduate nursing and medical programs. The findings indicate that ‘Other technologies used’ were relatively few – only 89 instances were mentioned by 299 respondents, and of these 89 some were basic hardware (laptops, data projectors) and online data source, which could fall under one or more of the 13 types that were drawn from the literature and the individual experiences of the researchers. There was extreme variation (between programmes and institutions) in the use of technologies. This finding is best explained by variations in the way in which programmes are offered and ‘educator’ preferences – there is clearly no ‘one size fits all’. On reasons for using educational technology, there is wide variation between categories of respondent, programmes and institutions. The main obstacles to the use of technology include that staff and students lack the required skills; no training is available; poor connectivity; lack of hardware and of funds to buy software; and lack of online learning resources. Conclusions The information generated, in such detail was not available before and opens many opportunities for further research as well as for planning and implementing improvements in technology enhanced health professions education. Based on the data, we propose practical recommendations organized around: Infrastructure Development, Training and Capacity Building, Curriculum reviews to align with technology, Institutional Support and Policy Development, Collaboration and Resource Sharing and Addressing Equity and Inclusion.