Graham Shaw*, DIPEx, Oxford, United Kingdom Track: Research Presentation Topic: Web 2.0-based medical education and learning Presentation Type: Oral presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: Mermaid Room: Room 4 - Queenshithe Date: 2013-09-24 11:30 AM – 01:00 PM Last modified: 2013-09-25

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The DIPEx Charity publishes two award-winning websites – www.healthtalkonline.org and www.youthhealthtalk.org – which present people's personal experiences of over 75 illnesses (such as cancer and heart disease) and other health issues (including bereavement and being a carer). These websites are based on detailed research conducted by the Health Experiences Research Group (HERG) within the Department of Primary Health Care Sciences, University of Oxford. Traffic to the websites has grown dramatically in recent years; some 2.5 million people visit the sites annually with over 50 million hits. With thousands of video and audio clips from interviews with patients and carers, Healthtalkonline recently featured at no.2 in a list of ‘essential’ Top 50 websites published by the London Times. This British innovation is now being duplicated in 10 countries worldwide through the formation of DIPEx International.

For each project 40-50 people are interviewed, typically in their own homes, about their experiences of a particular condition. Based on analysis of the interview transcripts, we write 25-30 summaries on the most important issues that emerge from the interviews and illustrate these on the websites with around 250-300 audio and video clips for each condition. A complete list of the conditions we have covered to date is shown at http://www.healthtalkonline.org/see_all_conditions/.
DIPEx has pioneered a greater understanding of what it’s like to experience health issues. Patients, carers, friends, family and health professionals find invaluable the direct and uncompromising first-hand accounts of health issues in the form of video or audio clips and written transcripts. Going online to watch and listen to real people discuss their own health journeys can provide precious insights and help to alleviate fears. This is a unique resource which is having an enormous impact on future health care delivery.

Both websites are used increasingly to train health and social care professionals. We supply video and audio clips on a weekly basis to trainers seeking to ensure that their courses include the authentic voice of patients and have provided content for major e-learning projects on adolescent health (produced by the Royal College of Child Health and Paediatrics). Based on a major website development programme, we shall now offer the facility for all registered website users, including health professionals, teachers and trainers, to create their own personalised training materials through a unique ‘Scrapbooks’ feature.

‘Scrapbooks’ will enable health professional trainers to scan the website for relevant information, mark those pages and video/audio clips of interest and create a collection of the relevant material which can then be integrated into training programmes. Alternatively, a teacher may create a collection of young people speaking about their experiences of drugs/alcohol for use with adolescents. Or doctors may create a scrapbook of people’s stories for individual patients struggling to cope with a health problem.

The presentation will focus on how curating personal health experiences will make a major contribution to individual health care, to better training of health professionals and to the education of young and old in coping with challenges to their health.