The Coventry University E-health Support (CUES) project was funded by the Higher Innovation and Education Cluster (HIEC) West Midlands and was led by Prof Gill Furze of the Health and Life Sciences (HLS) faculty at Coventry University.
The modules were originally developed for practitioners working in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service as a support tool for those with little or no experience of these long term conditions. The modules contain information about lifestyle advice, exploring, diagnosing, dispelling myths and treatment for HF and COPD. However, the modules can be used by any health professionals working with patients with COPD or HF and are free to access. They will also be hosted on the IAPT internal server for use by practitioners. TheAssociation of Respiratory Nurses have also enthusiastically offered to badge the COPD practitioner module on their website. General feedback from nurses and IAPT practitioners has been very positive with a real need for the modules being expressed.
Focus groups were conducted with patients recruited from COPD and cardiac support groups in the Midlands (N=24). Both the COPD and cardiac patients felt the e-learning modules were a very useful resource. They were reassured about the authenticity of the resources as they have been developed by a multi-disciplinary team including senior nurse specialists. Many of the patients (all of whom were over 50) used computers at home or accessed the internet via their phones and found the website very easy to navigate. They enjoyed the pictures and found the content very informative both for the newly diagnosed and for those already living with the condition. Both patient groups found the dispelling myths section particularly enjoyable as it includes a quiz. Suggestions for improvement included adding a link to local support groups which has now been incorporated into the design creating a more helpful resource.
Both the practitioner modules and the patient resources are now live and we have included a link to provide feedback. Feedback from
all user is very much encouraged and also appreciated so that we can continue to provide the best content for our users. The project involved collaboration with Wendy Preston and Alison Bardsley (senior nurse specialists and lecturers based in HLS), Steven Ball and Paul Hammond (learning technologists from the Centre for Excellence in Learning Enhancement – CELE), Puja Joshi, Patrick Kennedy-Williams and Tatiana Gulko (researchers from the Applied Research Centre for Health and Lifestyle Interventions) and Helen Fletcher (IAPT Psychological Well-being Practitioner).
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