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KATHY HOLLOWAY explains how to attend a conference without leaving the house

It is a well understood that continuing education and ongoing engagement with professional colleagues supports high quality, safe and effective clinical practice. Conferences are recognised as providing an excellent mechanism for achieving both of these goals. However time and expense may preclude your ability to participate in the myriad of relevant international and national conference opportunities available to registered nurses these days.

A quick peruse of the NZNO conference and event site reveals around 50 different workshops, conferences and professional development opportunities available nationally. Some of these may have a webinar option also referred to as an online conference, web meeting, net meeting or virtual meeting. A webinar is an online technology that provides a mechanism for nurses across the world to connect globally to benchmark and develop their practice. The phrase webinar is derived from the combining of web and seminar and is thought to have first been used in the 1990’s.

Webinar technology is a new tool emerging in the world of health and other disciplines, making it possible to connect people beyond conference calls and e-mails. During webinar sessions online participants have the opportunity to watch, listen, use email or text chat to ask questions and have a discussion with the presenter. Within the software there’s a presentation area for slides and document sharing.

With a good internet connection (i.e. broadband) and access to a telephone you have all you need to join a webinar or even organise your own webinar. There are a number of free software applications that can be used to host webinars such as Google Hangouts or Web-Ex that you can register with. For an example see Patricia Benner in a 2010 webinar on Educating Nurses and Physicians: Toward New Horizons hosted by the Carnegie Foundation at www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources-webinar-nursing-and-medical-education.

Webinars are a real-time session that people can log in to and often includes time for questions or discussions either live via chat or by phone. If you don’t manage to make the synchronous broadcast then the webinars can often be accessed later on host websites. Many international health organisations provide webinars for example the CDC, American Nurses Association and Institute of Medicine. In New Zealand recently to mark World Suicide Prevention Day 2012 an online, interactive webinar on the topic of strengthening protective factors and instilling hope was held – copies of these presentations are available www.spinz.org.nz/page/239-events-archive+webinar-for-world-suicide-prevention-day-2012.

So let your mouse do your walking and check out your favourite conference sites for webinars or recorded presentations post-conference. Don’t let geography get in the way of broadening your professional horizons – with awareness comes choice.

Dr Kathy Holloway is dean of the Faculty of Health at Whitireia Community Polytechnic.