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Staff development is an ongoing, never-ending event. New practices, new equipment, new treatments, and new ways of doing the work are evolving, sometimes faster than we as practitioners can assimilate. Having tools for successful just-in-time learning is essential in our environment of health care on steroids. This column offers some tools to consider as you expand your thinking about the use, development, and dissemination of new technology-based professional development delivery methods.
What Are QR Codes?
Quick response (QR) codes are now an essential tool for the professional development specialist. If you have not yet started using QR codes, consider this tool as an essential tool, similar to a keyboard or old-fashioned pen. QR codes, which first appeared in 1994, were invented in Japan for the automotive industry. QR codes are the small, black-and-white squares that you scan with your smartphone.
QR codes work by creating a bar-code that points to a website or application. Until recently, a special app was needed to read these codes; however, newer camera phones now have the ability to read the code and go to the linked site. It is as simple as point and click. It is this simplicity that transforms just-in-time learning.
QR codes are in the public everywhere, from wine bottles, to movie tickets, to Snapcodes that act as a form of social media that garner more than 8 million codes a day (Pierce, 2017). The use of these codes within health care also can be educators' answer to the essential Lean question, “How does the work tell you what to do?” Case use of these codes follows, starting first with the specifics of how to make your own QR codes, which is relatively simple.
Initial considerations for creating your own QR codes include the ability to store videos and teaching material on your internal website, web-based, or cloud-based sites, partnership with your hospital IT/IS team,...