We are pleased to announce that we are moving forward with the development of the OHSAH Learning Portal, which will provide BC’s healthcare stakeholders with online access to healthcare occupational health and safety (OH&S) learning resources.

Two of the primary goals of the Learning Portal are:

• Reduce duplication of OHS learning resources
• Increase collaborative development of new OH&S learning resources

The Portal itself has many potential users, including personnel involved in developing OH&S education and training, JOHS Committees, and front-line workers.

In the initial development of the Portal, OHSAH is targeting professionals in its union and employer stakeholder organizations who oversee and/or develop OHS education and training resources. OHSAH will be conducting a series of online forums and focus groups in Spring 2009 to collect the input of this group on the Portal’s features, design, structure, and access.

While we anticipate that the features and content of the Learning Portal will continue to evolve based on stakeholder input, developing and uploading the existing provincial resources will occur over a 3-year period, with content added according to the priorities set by OHSAH’s Board of Directors (Violence Prevention materials are scheduled to be added in Year 1).

Phase 1 of the Learning Portal is scheduled to launch in early 2010.

We have embarked on a project to restructure our courses with a goal to:

Modularize the content into smaller segments;

Structure the content to reflect varying levels of prior knowledge and experience;

Utilize alternative delivery options to maximize classroom time.

Build in strategies to support the on-the-job application of knowledge and skills.

We are currently working on a draft curriculum framework and will be forming a bi-partite working group in late spring to provide input into the framework and the development of the modules.

Stay tuned for more updates of these and other projects!