Open Educational Resources

This is a comprehensive ECG library. The site includes facts, definitions, examples, case studies of multiple ECG readings. This is an excellent resource for students studying nursing and medicine at all levels. It is also a good review site for practitioners that want to improve their ECG reading skills.

An interactive online learning activity for nurses and healthcare personnel

Key Words: Blood gases

This learning module presents the proper technique and common errors associated with assessment of blood pressure. The information is targeted at new learners in the clinical and health sciences and can serve as a review for current practitioners. The program includes audio of blood pressure sounds, interactive simulations, and self-assessment tools.

This provides text description and audio examples of various heart and breath sounds. The sounds are broken up into certain catagories. The heart sounds are divided into systolic, where you can hear aortic stenosis, mitral regurgitation, etc.., and diastolic, where you can hear mitral stenosis, aortic regurgitation, etc.. The lung sounds provide examples of cackles and wheezes.

This site provides basic facts about foodborne diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, parasites, or toxins.

This website allows visitors to see and hear extensive digital recordings of actual patients, with high-resolution animations, ECGs and explanatory text. The Heart Sounds Tutorial focuses on the four common valvar lesions in the left heart including aortic regurgitation, aortic stenosis, mitral regurgitation, and mitral stenosis. In this tutorial, you will be able to examine actual patients with these lesions. By moving a virtual stethoscope over the chest, you can listen to the heart at several listening locations, while at the same time, you will see a video of the patient's pulsations in the neck, precordium, or extremities. The findings are explained with text, as well as illustrated with phonocardiograms, hemodynamic data, and computer animations. An interactive quiz will test your ability to identify correctly the first and second heart sounds, extra sounds, diastolic and systolic murmurs in recordings of actual patients, using a computer animation of the carotid pulse for timing. The SVT Tutorial is an online program that uses computer animations to explain arrhythmia mechanisms and their associated electrocardiographic findings for the following examples including AV Node Reentry, AV Reentry, Atrial Tachycardia, Atrial Flutter, and Atrial Fibrillation.

CSO is a project aimed at providing interactive online videos demonstrating core procedural skills common to a wide range of medical and health-based courses. The clinical skills videos on this site have been created at the 'lowest common denominator' level for a host of medical and healthcare related disciplines with a view to share with the wider community. The content has been created and peer-reviewed by a multi-professional team so that it is applicable, with little or no change, to a variety of health-based courses. St George s, University of London, have taken extreme care in preparing the information on this site but please be aware that there maybe slight variations in the procedures, shown in the videos, from institution to institution depending on policies and equipment used. All content on this website (including text, images, videos, and any other original works), unless otherwise stated, is already licensed under a Creative Commons deed. CSO contains videos which are only suitable for viewing by adults of at least 18 years of age, or 21 years of age depending on your location. Please note this site is also registered with the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA).

Explores factors associated with disease emergence & re-emergence & considers the human activities that can increase or decrease the likelihood of outbreaks of infectious diseases. Students play the role of epidemiologists looking for clues to solve the case of a mystery disease, watch simulations of herd immunity & the impact of vaccination programs, & assign limited funds to three proposals submitted to address a major infectious disease. (NIH) The target audience is grades 9-12.

Keywords:
epidemiology, infectious diseases, etiology

An interactive multimedia tutorial for healthcare professionals wishing to refresh math skills and learn how to calculate medication dosages and intravenous (IV) rates. The tutorial has three modules. Each module has includes a quiz. The first module covers information about fractions, decimals, ratios, proportions, and percentage. The second module covers information about conversions, medication administration, and dosage calculation. The third module covers information about intraveneous infusions including tubing calculation and intraveneous flow rates. Key words: Medication calculation; Intravenous flow rate calculation; Mathematics principles
Keywords:
Medication calculation, Dosages, Medications

An excellent survey of osteoporosis suitable for a wide audience including practicing physicians.

The site is an interactive game.The game shows a variety of people involved in halting an outbreak and only the intern can save them! The players receive case files, maps, visit locations, take samples and draw conclusions. Players not only try to solve the case, but learn about public health careers.A teachers guide and related links are included.
Key words: Public Health, Epidemiology,case study, health sciences careers.

An interactive tuitorial for nurses about psych pharmaceuticals with quizzes and completion certificates.

Keyword:
Psych Pharm Medications Mental Health Nursing

This material is about the thyroid and parathyroid glands.

Interactive multimedia and simulations content in Shockwave/Flash on human physiology with extra topics in anatomy and neuroanatomy.

A website that links to information and products used to treat asthma. The site as seen in October 2010 is no longer the website that was originally peer reviewed.

OER commons

PUBLICATION DATE
December 14, 2015

Nursing Care at the End of Life: What Every Clinician Should Know should be an essential component of the basic educational preparation for the professional registered nurse student. Recent studies show that only one in four nurses feel confident in caring for dying patients and their families and less than 2% of overall content in nursing textbooks is related to end-of-life care. Despite the tremendous growth in palliative and end-of-life care programs across the country, very few nursing education programs provide adequate education on this topic for future nurses. The purpose of this textbook is to provide an in-depth look at death and dying in this country including the vital role of the nurse in assisting patients and families along the journey towards the end of life.

Anatomy and Physiology is a dynamic textbook for the two-semester human anatomy and physiology course for life science and allied health majors. The book is organized by body system and covers standard scope and sequence requirements. Its lucid text, strategically constructed art, career features, and links to external learning tools address the critical teaching and learning challenges in the course. The web-based version of Anatomy and Physiology also features links to surgical videos, histology, and interactive diagrams.

Book by: Wendy Lightheart
Book is made available for free online by Openstax CNX.

Book by: Herbert L. Fred, MD, Hendrik A. van Dijk
When sophisticated medical technology became available in the 1970s, it established diagnoses with unprecedented speed and accuracy. But it also affected the practice and teaching of medicine, shifting focus from the bedside to the laboratory and giving rise to a laboratory-oriented rather than a patient-oriented mindset. As a result, physicians’ bedside skills have steadily deteriorated, and using one’s mind and sensory faculties to make diagnoses has become a lost art.

The images assembled here—some rare, many extraordinary, but every one instructive—are, with few exceptions, related to patients I have personally seen during my 53 years (and counting) as a full-time medical educator. They are presented non-thematically and as unknowns (the way patients typically show up in the hospital emergency department, the clinic, or the doctor’s office). Thus, readers must draw upon their entire diagnostic armamentarium in each case.

Glynda Rees Doyle and Jodie Anita McCutcheon
This open educational resource (OER) was developed to ensure best practice and quality care based on the latest evidence, and to address inconsistencies in how clinical health care skills are taught and practised in the clinical setting. The checklist approach, used in this textbook, aims to provide standardized processes for clinical skills and to help nursing schools and clinical practice partners keep procedural practice current. Each skill/procedure is covered in a chapter that has learning objectives, a brief overview of the relevant theory, checklists of steps for procedures with the rationale behind each step of the process, and a summary of key takeaways. Key terms are set in bold throughout the book and laid out again in a Glossary in the appendix. All 88 checklists are also summarized, and hyperlinked to the original checklist, in the appendix.

Description: The purpose of this book is to help boards of directors of nonprofit organizations improve their performance after completing the Board Check-Up, online board performance self-assessment tool found at www.boardcheckup.com. This book is also valuable as a stand-alone resource for any board seeking to assess its performance in that it contains the diagnostic questions on which the online self-assessment tool is based. It goes further by providing a framework for boards to use in discussing needed changes in board performance.

Author: Glynda Rees, Rob Kruger, Janet Morrison; British Columbia Institute of Technology
Description: Health Case Studies is composed of eight separate health case studies that align with the open textbooks Clinical Procedures for Safer Patient Care and Anatomy and Physiology: OpenStax. Each case study includes the patient narrative or story that models the best practice (at the time of publishing) in healthcare settings. Associated with each case is a set of specific learning objectives to support learning and facilitate educational strategies and evaluation. The case studies can be used online in a learning management system, in a classroom discussion, in a printed course pack or as part of a textbook created by the instructor.

Author: Peter Smith, University of Victoria
"Nevertheless, this text should be of considerable value, say, to a would-be botanist or medical doctor, if only by providing the foundation for further specialized enquiry."

Author: Sherri Melrose, Debra Dusome, John Simpson, Cheryl Crocker, Elizabeth Athens
Description: This multidisciplinary resource develops topics of interest to all those who care about and for individuals with co-occurring intellectual disabilities and mental illness. Each chapter presents current evidence informed practice knowledge. Each topic is also presented with audio enabled text boxes emphasizing 'Key Points for Caregivers.' For those who are interested in background knowledge, we provided the comprehensive literature base. And, for those interested mainly in 'what to do,' we provided text box summaries for reading and listening.

Author: Tara Horkoff, Scott McLean
Description: Writing for Success is a text that provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition.

Author: Edited by Francis Lau, Craig Kuziemsky
Description: This handbook presents the science and practice of eHealth evaluation based on empirical evidence gathered over many years within the health informatics discipline. The handbook describes different approaches used to evaluate the planning, design, implementation, use and impact of eHealth systems in different health settings. It also provides a snapshot of the current state of knowledge on the consequences of opting for eHealth systems with respect to their effects and implications on provider performance and health outcomes.

Author: Jennifer L. Lapum, Margaret Verkuyl, Wendy Garcia, Oona St-Amant, Andy Tan, Ryerson University
Description: The purpose of this textbook is to help learners develop best practices in vital sign measurement. Using a multi-media approach, it will provide opportunities to read about, observe, practice, and test vital sign measurement.

Author: Adrienne Watt
Description: This book covers the basics of project management. This includes the process of initiation, planning, execution, control and close out that all projects share. This book has been adapted by the author as of August 15, 2014. The adaptation includes Canadianized content, PowerPoints, Audio Files, and Chapter Questions, which are located in the book's appendixes.

Before new interventions can be used in disease control programmes, it is essential that they are carefully evaluated in “field trials”, which may be complex and expensive undertakings. Descriptions of the detailed procedures and methods used in trials that have been conducted in the past have generally not been published. As a consequence, those planning such trials have few guidelines available and little access to previously accumulated knowledge. In this book the practical issues of trial design and conduct are discussed fully and in sufficient detail for the text to be used as a “toolbox” by field investigators. The toolbox has now been extensively tested through use of the first two editions and this third edition is a comprehensive revision, incorporating the many developments that have taken place with respect to trials since 1996 and involving more than 30 contributors. Most of the chapters have been extensively revised and 7 new chapters have been added.

This peer reviewed e-book is a must-read for nurses and other health professionals who strive to teach with creativity and excellence in clinical settings. Each chapter presents current evidence informed educational practice knowledge. Each topic is also presented with text boxes describing ‘Creative Strategies’ that clinical teachers from across Canada have successfully implemented. For those who are interested in background knowledge, the authors provided a comprehensive literature base. And, for those interested mainly in 'what to do,' the text box summaries offer step-by-step directions for creative, challenging activities that both new and experienced instructors can begin using immediately.

Open source textbooks that are written by professional content developers who are experts in their fields and undergo a rigorous peer review process. All textbooks meet standard scope and sequence requirements.

The Open Textbook Library provides a growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks. The Open Textbook Library is supported by the Center for Open Education and the Open Textbook Network.

MERLOT is a curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community. The MERLOT Collection is made up of over 40,000 materials in 19 different material type categories.

OER Commons helps educators, students, and lifelong learners avoid time-consuming searches and find exactly the right materials. With a single point of access from which they can search, browse, and evaluate resources in OER Commons’ growing collection of over 50,000 high-quality OER everyone can more efficiently find what they need.