The use of elearning in medical education and healthcare practice – A review study

Abstract

Nowadays, information and communication technologies (ICT) influence all spheres of human life, including learning. Thanks to ICT, traditional learning approaches such as teacher-centred learning, mass instruction, once pace to all, using only textbooks and learning in classrooms, have radically changed. Students’ learning started to be supported electronically in the form of eLearning. The aim of this article is to explore the use of eLearning in medical education and healthcare practice and discuss its advantages and disadvantages to help deliver better care for patients and populations. The methods include a method of literature search of available sources describing this issue in the world’s acknowledged databases Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and MEDLINE, and a method of comparison and evaluation of the findings in the selected studies on the research topic. The findings of this review study indicate that eLearning is an important tool for medical education and healthcare practice in terms of the dissemination of knowledge, understanding particular health issues, continuous education, and training of busy healthcare professionals.