SLM, Johns Hopkins, MDSNe partner to provide medical education for European healthcare providers

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, San Lucas Medical (SLM), a leading London-based medical education communications company and medical publisher of fifteen medical journals throughout Europe and Asia and MDSNe, a healthcare specific, social media startup, announced today their partnership to design, implement and distribute medical education to European healthcare providers based on social learning. The partnership will also partner with leading medical organizations and institutions to co-create and distribute content utilizing their combined multi-media, publishing and social media expertise.

One of the first initiatives they will co-create is the Healthcare Disparities Action Lab Initiative for Breast Cancer (HALI-BC), developed to increase the factual and procedural knowledge of participating oncologists by giving them access to social learning tools that facilitate a collaborative approach to learning. Participants can co-create content, as well as share knowledge with others by leveraging social media tools including blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasting and peer-to-peer (P2P) media sharing utilities.

"With multiple technologies and demand-driven learning growing exponentially, we needed to re-consider how education has been traditionally available to healthcare providers," said Nahida Zaman, CEO of SLM. "Combining MDSNe's expertise in the social media space with SLM's multimedia and publishing know-how, we've co-developed the first of several initiatives where participants can customize and personalize the way they access, share and exchange information, delivering an endless stream of learning possibilities," said Ms. Zaman.

HALI-BC's goal is to enhance the collective knowledge of participants, fostering a community of members who are genuinely connected and feel as though they are able to gain valuable insight from each other. This type of social rapport not only enhances information discovery but also cultivates knowledge aggregation. Due to the nature of social media technologies, HALI-BC participants are able to capitalize on this by customizing and personalizing the way they share, exchange and create content, providing an endless stream of learning possibilities.

"Seun Moses Abimbola, CEO of MDSNe highlighted, "An important point to emphasize is that social learning isn't radical in terms of changing how and what health care providers learn, but it will provide them with new possibilities and applications to learn." Mr. Abimbola concluded, "In this way, learning becomes a participatory, self-directed social process that supports their individual goals and needs."