A Novel Digital Educational Strategy Improves Treatment Adherence and Quality of Life in Patients with Multiple Myeloma.

Multiple myeloma, the second most common hematologic malignancy worldwide, is an aggressive disease with high morbidity and mortality rates. Although myeloma remains incurable, new treatments have improved patients' life expectancy and quality of life. However, as these therapies are administered for prolonged and often indefinite periods, their success depends on high treatment adherence and significant patient engagement. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a novel digital educational strategy on treatment adherence, quality of life, and the development of complications in patients with newly diagnosed myeloma. To this end, a two-arm, randomized, prospective, double-blind study was conducted to compare the conventional educational approach alone or combined with the novel digital strategy. This strategy was based on some principles of the Persuasive Systems Design model and incorporated the educational recommendations of patients and caregivers. Compared to the control group that only received information through the conventional educational approach, patients randomized to the digital strategy showed significantly higher treatment adherence and quality of life, associated with increased functionality and rapid reincorporation into daily routines. The digital strategy empowered patients and caregivers to understand the disease and therapeutic options and helped patients recall treatment information and implement healthy lifestyle habits. These results support that patient-targeted educational strategies can positively influence treatment adherence and thus improve their quality of life.

Digital Education for the Deployment of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a significant milestone in health care's digital transformation. However, traditional health care education and training often lack digital competencies. To promote safe and effective AI implementation, health care professionals must acquire basic knowledge of machine learning and neural networks, critical evaluation of data sets, integration within clinical workflows, bias control, and human-machine interaction in clinical settings. Additionally, they should understand the legal and ethical aspects of digital health care and the impact of AI adoption. Misconceptions and fears about AI systems could jeopardize its real-life implementation. However, there are multiple barriers to promoting electronic health literacy, including time constraints, overburdened curricula, and the shortage of capacitated professionals. To overcome these challenges, partnerships among developers, professional societies, and academia are essential. Integrating specialists from different backgrounds, including data specialists, lawyers, and social scientists, can significantly contribute to combating digital illiteracy and promoting safe AI implementation in health care.

Impact of COVID-19 on Students' Generic Skills - A Case Study in a University from a Developing Country.

The education sector was considerably affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, risking the learning process and forcing governments to pull out contingency actions to ensure the students' development of generic and specific skills and guarantee education quality. These actions include the shift to online and hybrid (i.e., online and in-person) classes. This work assesses the pandemic effect on the generic skills of undergraduate students in a Colombian university. The study aims to determine the effect of COVID- 19 on the development of generic skills quantitatively. Two datasets were retrieved: i) A dataset with the scores obtained by the students in an institutional Generic Skills test and in the midterm tests; ii) A dataset with the students' scores in the Colombian standardized test for undergraduate students, called the Saber Pro test. Three analysis stages were performed: i) Univariate exploratory analysis; ii) Differential analysis to compare the No COVID vs. COVID scenarios; iii) A correlation analysis. Results showed that the scores of the Generic Skills and the Midterm tests increased significantly when comparing the two scenarios, except for the Written Communication. As for the Saber Pro test, only the scores for Written Comprehension, Quantitative Reasoning, and the global scores increased significantly. On the other hand, the correlation analysis showed a strong correlation only between the scores obtained at the Generic Skills and the Saber Pro tests for the English Proficiency skill. In addition, the analysis elucidated a weak correlation between the Generic Skills test's average and the Saber Pro's global score. Finally, the results prove that online education is a feasible alternative that offers students more flexibility to ensure the development of generic and specific skills.