A DETECT 2.0 study looked at what future nurses, care workers and ICT professionals learn about artificial intelligence. Each group is taught half of what the work will need, and the two halves rarely meet.
Imagine Mary, 79. Last year she was told she has mild cognitive impairment, and she still lives on her own. A sensor in the hallway will call for help if she falls. Her tablet reminds her of appointments, lets her video-call her daughter and gives her a short planning exercise each morning. The nurse who visits her is expected to set all this up and explain it, and to judge when each tool helps and when it gets in the way.
Tools like these are becoming part of everyday care. To find out whether the people who will use and build them are being prepared, DETECT 2.0 surveyed 34 teachers and coordinators of care and ICT (information and communication technology) programmes at partner schools and universities in Finland, Spain and the Netherlands, then compared the results with programmes elsewhere in Europe.
What students learn
Care students learn to look after people, including people with dementia, but AI-based care technology usually gets little more than a mention. Eight in ten respondents said their programme teaches it superficially or not at all, and none teaches it in depth; where it does appear, the most common topic is patient monitoring such as fall detection. Seven programmes in ten never apply AI to dementia care. Those that do are care programmes, usually through a case study, and just two have a dedicated module or topic.
On the ICT side the gap runs the other way. None of the twelve ICT programmes applies AI to dementia care, and most do not cover AI in healthcare settings at all. Only about one programme in seven gives real weight to care and ICT students learning together.
Some gaps weigh more because the people concerned have dementia. Data protection is the digital topic taught most often, though as general rules. How to ask for consent when someone’s cognition is changing is almost never taught, and only about one care programme in seven teaches students to spot bias in data or in an AI recommendation.
What teachers say
Two in three teachers doubt that their graduates can use AI tools well and responsibly; in vocational programmes it is four in five. Asked what holds their institutions back, they most often named a lack of AI expertise and training among teachers, ahead of money and time. “Teacher expertise: how to stay up to date?” one wrote. Another: “AI has risen so quickly that addressing its impacts in slow curriculum processes is difficult.”
Their wish list was concrete: AI in care work and during internships, joint projects with ICT students, work with real clients, and the responsible use of data.
The picture across Europe
The project also compared 13 reference programmes in eight European countries. At one end, more than two million people have signed up for Elements of AI, a free online course created in Finland. At the other, a few master’s programmes, such as the AI for Health track at the University of Amsterdam, combine AI and health for specialists.
In between, at the vocational and bachelor’s level where many nurses and care workers study, very little connects AI with care practice. Spain, for instance, has a 600-hour vocational specialisation in AI and big data, yet none of the qualifications that give direct access to it is a health qualification. Nowhere in its search did the project find a programme that teaches AI for dementia care.
What happens next
DETECT 2.0’s first priority is a training programme for teachers in vocational schools and universities. It will also develop short modules on AI and dementia care that schools can slot into full timetables and certify as micro-credentials, along with open learning materials in several of the partners’ languages. Ethics and sustainability will be part of every module. Care and ICT students will work on real problems together, building on the project’s two hackathons this autumn. Work on the first curriculum drafts begins this October, and care providers and companies in the project’s network will review them.
What schools and care services can do now
For schools and universities, a useful first step is an honest check. Do care students learn what AI can and cannot do? Do ICT students ever work on a care problem? The report also advises investing in teachers before anything else and using short certified modules to bring AI into crowded programmes.
Care organisations have a more immediate reason to act. The EU AI Act already expects any organisation that uses AI systems to take measures to support its staff’s AI literacy, while most of the care programmes we surveyed still teach AI superficially or not at all. Training for staff already at work cannot wait for initial education to catch up.
Read the full report here.
The survey analysis was also published, after peer review, in the LAB RDI Journal.
The study was led by the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) with the DETECT 2.0 partners.