Evaluation of Disaster Medicine E-Learning Webs in Taiwan

Tzong-Luen Wang, MD, PhD; Chi-Fah Chong, MS, MD; Aming Chor-Min Lin, MD

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Abstract -- E-learning has become the most popular topic in medical education including disaster medicine. Because of advances in e-learning, generalization of disaster medicine education should take various modes of e-learning as the method. In Taiwan, there are some important websites concerning disaster medicine. We’d like to review these websites to evaluate if these sites provide good e-learning environments. We searched the official websites concerning disaster medicine in Taiwan and reviewed the websites according to the established protocol. Each website has been evaluated by two independent reviewers. The average scores were obtained by averaging the two scores. Of the available 6 websites, the total scores of these 6 websites varied from 42 points to 28 points (average 34+12 points). The most unsatisfactory performances among these websites were multimedia preparation and interaction possibilities (P<0.05 by ANOVA). In conclusion, this report demonstrated that the e-learning of disaster medicine was still primitive in Taiwan. It should be the first priority to implement a well-established e-learning environment to provide good disaster medicine information and education.