Upgrading rural Japanese nurses' respiratory rehabilitation skills throughvideoconferencing

We examined the effect of distance learning on nurses' clinical skills in a rural Japanese hospital. The subject matter was respiratory rehabilitation . After one face-to-face session, two 30 min sessions were delivered by vid eoconferencing to staff nurses working in a 100-bed rural hospital 250 mile s (400 km) from Sapporo Medical University. A self-rating questionnaire was distributed before and after the sessions. Responses were collected from 1 5 out of 32 nurses participating in the face-to-face session (47%). Before the first videoconferencing session, 'always use' and 'sometime use' the ne w skills were Fated by 67% of nurses, but after the second videoconferencin g session 'always use' and 'sometimes use' were rated by 73% and 'never use ' at 0%. This implies that there was increased use of new skills after the second session, although the difference was not significant. The nurses' op inions about the effectiveness for patients increased from 8% to 27% after the second session, which was significant. The pilot project indicated the usefulness of distance learning for upgrading nurses' clinical practice in one rural Japanese hospital and suggested ways in which videoconferencing c an be used in future.