Communication and electronic access: medical radiation science clinical centres' perspective

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the availability and use of electronic devices and information in day-to-day lives and in the workplace. The tertiary education sector has embraced the electronic age and has, in our cases, taken the lead with innovative use of information technology (IT). While the flexibility IT provides appeals to students and creates new opportunities, the IT infrastructure and staff development required to make full use of the new facilities requires significant investment. The aim of this study was to survey medical radiation science professional centres to assess the availability of IT resources, determine who has access to the IT resources and sample staff attitudes towards their preferred method of communication with the university. A questionnaire was mailed to each Chief Nuclear Medicine Scientist, Chief Radiation Therapist and Chief Radiographer for each clinical centre that participated in The University of Newcastle's clinical placement program (PPS). One hundred and thirty one questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 51 %. Twenty-seven responses from nuclear medicine centres (50%), twenty-four responses from radiation therapy centres (70%) and 80 responses from diagnostic radiography centres (48%). The majority (85%) of respondents reported they had between three and 30 computers where staff could access the internet, word processing and email. The preferred method of communication was email (52%) versus letter (30%) and telephone (17%). In the event that work load increased, email was a preferred method of communication where the preference for telephone and letters decreased.