Through the Canary Foundation Agora, the aim consists of developing online surgical training and education for healthcare professionals in the archipelago.
The CajaCanarias Foundation and La Caixa ‘Obra Social’ have taken steps to establish an agreement of collaboration with the Canary foundation Agora to finance the development of the FAST (Advanced Education in Health Care with the use of Technology) project, which has been used for the last few years at the different levels within the structure of the autonomous health service (students, residents, medical professionals) and is directed by the specialist in endovascular surgery Professor Dr. Manuel Maynar, University Professor and Director of the HospitenEndoluminal Diagnostics and Therapeutics Center.
The Agora Foundation develops educational projects and activities using technology as the fundamental base to improve learning and updating of knowledge in the various healthcare specialties (medical, nursing, etc.), from pre-graduate teaching to the updating and continued education of specialists. In addition, such technologically based education means added value for online resources used in virtual education and the different types of equipment used in simulated real surgical situations. To be more precise, the FAST project aims to launch these latter stages, as, at present, all the medical education stages are covered (Graduate, Postgraduate – Residency and Continued Education) and educational actions have been successfully carried out at the four Canary University Hospitals and the university. And so, the three entities consider there to be a common, reciprocal interest in working together on the development and execution of actions to improve healthcare education and training as a fundamental way to improve the health system, in addition to optimizing the use of the human and material resources needed to do so.
More concretely, the endorsement of the FAST project resulting from the collaboration of the CajaCanarias Foundation and La Caixa ‘Obra Social’ aims to lend support to the subsequent phases designed by the Agora Foundation to achieve their principal goals. Among these is online education and training, with which they aim to reinforce the use of ICT technology in specialized courses and new, or necessary techniques in every day work. Such education and training focuses on Health Sciences students (graduate training), residents (specialty training) or continued education (updating for specialists).
Secondly, a virtual simulation stage will be developed, consisting in the use of equipment and software to provide supervised virtual surgical training in a simulator (like that in a flight simulator) for all techniques requiring the professional to undergo training prior to dealing with the actual patient.
Furthermore, in vivo training (experimental surgery) will be considered, with which the aim will be to include training with animals in experimental surgery with certain regularity and in function of the needs of the Canary Health Service. Training of this kind will focus on residents and/or continued education for specialists. And, finally, if and when necessary, technological development as an instrumental support to other lines of development may be considered.