Our Educational Partners

We are pleased to be working with healthcare education providers across the UK:

• Aston University, School of Pharmacy

• Cardiff University, School of Medicine

• Bangor University, School of Medical Sciences

• Edge Hill, School of Medicine

To find out more about using PKB with your students, please click here to contact us.

All our partners use us in a variety of ways, including the examples listed below. You can read more about our models of deployment by clicking here.

University of Leicester, Medical School

The Medical School at the University of Leicester was the first school that started using PKB for education back in 2014.

Initially, the University of Leicester decided to use our 'simulated model' with case study patients, but after some time they switched to our 'hybrid model' with patient volunteers.
Year 1 students work in groups to talk with patients with long-term conditions on the ‘discussion’ side of the platform, while year 2 students work to help patients adopt healthier lifestyles .

As this story demonstrates, the use of PKB is flexible to the universities needs, and is absolutely possible to start with a model and then chance to another one.

Newcastle University Medical School

Students at Newcastle University school of medical education in both Newcastle Upon Tyne and Malaysia started using PKB at the beginning of 2022.

First year medical students are using our platform with our ‘simulated model’: module leads have created case studies of patients for whom students will be able to view care plans, input medications and view test results.

This work is part of a cross-campus learning tool with NUMed Malaysia – an international branch campus – which provides medical and biomedical degree programmes equivalent to those of Newcastle University’s UK-based provision, but contextualised for Malaysia.

In the next academic year, the School would like to switch to our hybrid model, involving patient volunteers.

University of Manchester, School of Medicine

The University of Manchester is the largest medical school in the UK, and it started using PKB in September 2021. In the last academic year, 500 students, divided in 120 groups, interacted on our platform.

They are using the ‘simulated model’: the professors gave us some case study data, from which we created some case study patients in our servers. The students look at those fictitious patients and try to solve the medical case, in the context of problem based learning, practising their patients management skills.

The school is now looking at the future, and is interested in using our ‘live model’.

Liverpool John Moores University, School of Pharmacy

LJMU University has used PKB since 2019, initially choosing our 'simulated model', and then switching to the 'hybrid' one.

Year 1 pharmacy school students took on the simulated role of the patient and focussed on communicating with Year 3 students who in turn, simulated the role of the pharmacists. Year 2 students also worked with Year 4 students in this way.

The students playing the role of the ‘patients’ used the messaging facility in PKB to communicate with their ‘pharmacists’ about their medication and to get help and advice. The ‘pharmacists’, thanks to our functionalities, were able to view more health information about the patient enabling them to provide a more detailed and accurate response. It also allowed them to view other medications the patient was taking and consider side effects and notice anomalies.

The university switched then to our hybrid model, with students allocated to work in groups and interacting with real patient volunteers.

City University, School of Midwifery

At City University midwifery course, PKB has been used since 2017 with the ‘simulated model’. Our platform is used to help with the interactive storytelling element of the module, allowing the students to get an opportunity to use technology in their communications with their patients and enhance the students' understanding of the holistic care of a patient.

Students were divided into different storytelling groups and worked together to play different characters in the story: two students in each group played the role of a midwife and two students played the role of a patient, all using PKB to simulate a real life experience. The ‘patient’ students logged their symptoms, filled in journal entries and sent messages to the ‘midwife’ student all in real time. Roles were swapped halfway through the module when a new patient character was introduced - this allowed students to get experience of both roles.

University of Winchester, Faculty of Health and Wellbeing

Our work with the University of Winchester began in June 2022, and involved 30 students from the Department of Nursing, utilising the ‘simulated model’ of PKB during a virtual placement.

The team at the University of Winchester is already looking at how to integrate PKB also in other courses, with a plan for the next academic year to use our platform inter-professionally by students of Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy, which would use PKB to collaborate on patients’ care.

Use of PKB is flexible to your needs, contact us and we will discuss together what could the best option for your students.