University of Pittsburgh researchers have developed MedDbriefer, a novel teaching tool to improve key clinical reasoning and psychomotor skills in paramedic students during scenario-based training (SBT).
Description
MedDbriefer is designed for use by students to record the action of their peers. Using two main checklists for SBT relevant to Emergency Medical Services (EMS), the system is designed to analyze the actions of a student acting as leader of an EMS team and generates a debriefing. This technology has the potential to improve the teaching of student paramedics and those working in EMS resulting in more confident and prepared healthcare workers and improvements in patient care.
Applications
• Healthcare student training
• Improving availability of scenario-based training
Advantages
There is a lack of experienced facilitators of SBT limiting students’ access to this vital learning resource essential for the development of key technical and non-technical skills. Debriefing, one of the most important elements of SBT, provides quality feedback for students on their actions allowing for further learning. A lack of such training and debriefing can leave students unprepared for real-world situations. Finding new ways to debrief students would overcome this education gap.
While other computer-based training programs exist, they have many short comings. MedDbriefer is designed to allow students to independently observe others during SBT in any setting, using only a tablet and without the need for high-fidelity manikins or computer-based simulators. Actions are recorded against checklists (verbalized or physical) and clinical indicators can change in response to these actions. Additional prompts are provided by the tool when further clinical information is needed from the student, e.g., “What is the oxygen flow rate?” emulating facilitator-led training. Unlike other tools, MedDbriefer can provide automated debriefing in the absence of an experienced instructor in both virtual and physical SBT in a cost-effective manner.
Invention Readiness
A prototype has been developed using scenarios in the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians’ certification exam. MedDbriefer was field tested with senior EMS students. Use of MedDbriefer was well received and preliminary evidence suggested automated chronological debriefing, including color coding to highlight where required clinical actions were completed (green) or missed (red), could be beneficial to students. Future work to increase training scenarios, optimize, and research the benefits of debriefing formats, as well as developing SBT in other areas of healthcare is required.
IP Status
Software
