Abstract
As online education and resources continue to grow at a rapid rate for nurses in developed nations, the knowledge gap between developed and developing nation nurses continues to grow. Computer technology, while accessible and easy to use within developed countries, is new and unchartered territory for many others around the world, and issues such as bandwidth access, cost, local language content, translation and computer literacy, and computer skills remain key elements that need to be addressed before nurses in developing regions of the world can effectively benefit from such technology, otherwise they will be subject to an ever increasing digital divide. This paper will discuss the issues facing many developing nation ophthalmic nurses as they seek current evidence-based practice, evidence-based tools and training, connection with the wider nursing community, and an enhanced ability to apply new knowledge to their own practice advancement and patient care. This paper was compiled during a strategic research development phase for ORBIS Internationals' Cyber-Sight ( www.cyber-sight.org ) online learning tool for nurses. To date, Cyber-Sight has predominantly provided telemedicine and education support to international ophthalmologists around the world. The goal to develop a similar nursing page required initial research to determine the accessibility and availability of this internet resource, as it appeared far more difficult due to the language and affordable-access variances between doctors and nurses. Additionally, this task was considered uncharted waters in ophthalmic online nurse training within developing, emerging economy and war-torn areas of the world. Therefore, as part of a preliminary strategy, ORBIS decided that analysis of the online ophthalmic nursing community was necessary prior to commencing development of their on-line nurse training tools on Cyber-Sight. This paper presents the accumulation of investigations undertaken in order to develop a potential ophthalmic nursing programme for online nurse trainee groups in developing and emerging economy nations.
Published Version
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