BSL

How do you determine how much oxygen a patient needs? Or what the drip rate should be of an IV? Nurses calculate this by using medical mathematics. It is an essential part of their job, but it might not be everyone’s favourite. This was reason enough for publisher Bohn Stafleu van Loghum to create an accessible and interesting learning intervention with aNewSpring.

Being able to administer the right medication in the right amount increases safety, which naturally is a point of importance in healthcare. Although a lot of it has been automated already, many healthcare institutions share the opinion that it’s crucial for nurses to understand how it works and how to do it.

To make this learning intervention an interesting one, Bohn Stafleu van Loghum searched for a modern design that encourages interaction.

The medical maths module is an adaptive learning journey. Not a course to mindlessly click through, but one that focuses on what a person still needs to learn and practise. By only including the material a learner hasn’t mastered yet, the learning journey doesn’t take any longer than necessary.

The learning intervention is supported by videos of a maths teacher, mister Megens. He uses practical examples to explain how complicated sums can be calculated easily.

Nurses from Radboudumc (a university hospital in Nijmegen, The Netherlands) provided the cases and they continuously checked whether the course fits how it works in reality.

“Healthcare customers are very enthusiastic about it,” says Karin Linden, Senior Publisher at Bohn Stafleu van Loghum. “The method is accessible, thanks to the videos and because learners don’t need to do more than necessary. Besides that, it gives people confidence. Even the learners who thought they wouldn’t be able to master it, felt like they could actually succeed.”

Three months after the launch, 4500 learners took the medical maths course after their employees deemed it mandatory. The learning intervention was created for paediatric nursing and radiology, but can also be used for other specialties and other types of care. It consists of a basic module with core competences and added modules with specific cases that are focused on different sub-disciplines. These will be expanded in the future.