ABC of health informatics: Keeping up: Learning in the workplace

Barriers to workplace learning can be overcome, but a minor culture change in the medical profession is needed. This shift is already taking place in undergraduate medical education and in primary care. Clinical governance, risk management, patient empowerment, and the National Programme for IT will further advance the change. Using clinical questions to guide workplace learning relies on the motivation of individuals, teams, and organisations. It goes hand in hand with an open attitude to clinical errors and near misses. Motivation is especially necessary to fund the instant access resources needed to provide knowledge during clinical work. Fortunately, electronic media provide a simpler, cheaper method for workplace learning than paper libraries, although there is evidence that health librarians on site are still needed to support better clinical use of these resources.