Towards a collaborative learning environment for children's pain management: Leveraging an online discussion forum

Abstract

Effective management of pediatric pain requires proactive and effective collaboration between health practitioners from a variety of health disciplines. This article investigates the merits of a collaborative learning environment to address the knowledge gaps experienced by a community of pediatric pain practitioners. We present a knowledge management solution that leverages an online discussion forum as a collaborative learning environment rooted in team members sharing experiences, offering support to solve problems, guiding members to information/knowledge resources, informing peers about clinical practice guidelines, and simply seeking advice on matters pertaining to pediatric pain management. Team interactions, via the discussion forum, will be captured and represented as a social network to provide useful insights into the dynamics of team collaboration and to identify the patterns of knowledge flow amongst the team members. Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications.