Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training
Abstract Objective Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are increasingly being used in competency-based medical education approaches. A general lack of time in clinical settings, however, prevents supervisors from providing their trainees with adequate feedback. With a willingness for more adm...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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BMC
2022-07-01
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| Series: | BMC Medical Education |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03622-1 |
| _version_ | 1818189910057680896 |
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| author | Nadine Diwersi Jörn-Markus Gass Henning Fischer Jürg Metzger Matthias Knobe Adrian Philipp Marty |
| author_facet | Nadine Diwersi Jörn-Markus Gass Henning Fischer Jürg Metzger Matthias Knobe Adrian Philipp Marty |
| author_sort | Nadine Diwersi |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Objective Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are increasingly being used in competency-based medical education approaches. A general lack of time in clinical settings, however, prevents supervisors from providing their trainees with adequate feedback. With a willingness for more administrative tasks being low in both trainees and educators, the authors developed a radical user-friendly mobile application based on the EPA concept called “Surg-prEPAred”. Design Surg-prEPAred is designed to collect micro-assessment data for building competency profiles for surgical residents according to their curriculum. The goal of Surg-prEPAred is to facilitate the performance and documentation of workplace-based assessments. Through aggregated data the app generates a personalized competency profile for every trainee. During a pilot run of 4 months, followed by ongoing usage of the application with a total duration of 9 months (August 2019 to April 2020), 32 residents and 33 consultants made daily use of the application as a rating tool. Every rating included knowledge, skills and professional attitudes of the trainees. Before the initiation of the App and after the 9-month trial period trainees and supervisors where both sent questionnaires to evaluate the user friendliness and effectiveness of the App. Results Five hundred ten App based assessments were generated. Out of 40 pre-defined EPAs, 36 were assessed. 15 trainees and 16 supervisors returned the questionnaires and stated the surg-prEPAred App as very valuable, effective and feasible to evaluate trainees in a clinical setting providing residents with an individual competence portfolio to receive precision medical education. Conclusions The authors expectation is that the Surg-prEPAred App will contribute to an improvement of quality of medical education and thus to the quality of patient care and safety. In the future the goal is to have the App become an integral part of the official Swiss surgical curriculum accepted by the Swiss professional surgical society. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-11T23:50:19Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b094820697114cb5985623daf2e42b9e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1472-6920 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-11T23:50:19Z |
| publishDate | 2022-07-01 |
| publisher | BMC |
| record_format | Article |
| series | BMC Medical Education |
| spelling | doaj.art-b094820697114cb5985623daf2e42b9e2022-12-22T00:45:30ZengBMCBMC Medical Education1472-69202022-07-012211810.1186/s12909-022-03622-1Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical trainingNadine Diwersi0Jörn-Markus Gass1Henning Fischer2Jürg Metzger3Matthias Knobe4Adrian Philipp Marty5Department of General Surgery, Cantonal Hospital of LucerneDepartment of General Surgery, Cantonal Hospital of LucerneDepartment of General Surgery, Cantonal Hospital of LucerneDepartment of General Surgery, Cantonal Hospital of LucerneDepartment of General Surgery, Cantonal Hospital of LucerneInstitute of Anesthesiology, University Hospital ZürichAbstract Objective Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) are increasingly being used in competency-based medical education approaches. A general lack of time in clinical settings, however, prevents supervisors from providing their trainees with adequate feedback. With a willingness for more administrative tasks being low in both trainees and educators, the authors developed a radical user-friendly mobile application based on the EPA concept called “Surg-prEPAred”. Design Surg-prEPAred is designed to collect micro-assessment data for building competency profiles for surgical residents according to their curriculum. The goal of Surg-prEPAred is to facilitate the performance and documentation of workplace-based assessments. Through aggregated data the app generates a personalized competency profile for every trainee. During a pilot run of 4 months, followed by ongoing usage of the application with a total duration of 9 months (August 2019 to April 2020), 32 residents and 33 consultants made daily use of the application as a rating tool. Every rating included knowledge, skills and professional attitudes of the trainees. Before the initiation of the App and after the 9-month trial period trainees and supervisors where both sent questionnaires to evaluate the user friendliness and effectiveness of the App. Results Five hundred ten App based assessments were generated. Out of 40 pre-defined EPAs, 36 were assessed. 15 trainees and 16 supervisors returned the questionnaires and stated the surg-prEPAred App as very valuable, effective and feasible to evaluate trainees in a clinical setting providing residents with an individual competence portfolio to receive precision medical education. Conclusions The authors expectation is that the Surg-prEPAred App will contribute to an improvement of quality of medical education and thus to the quality of patient care and safety. In the future the goal is to have the App become an integral part of the official Swiss surgical curriculum accepted by the Swiss professional surgical society.https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03622-1Mobile applicationPerformance assessmentSurgical trainingEntrustable professional activity |
| spellingShingle | Nadine Diwersi Jörn-Markus Gass Henning Fischer Jürg Metzger Matthias Knobe Adrian Philipp Marty Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training BMC Medical Education Mobile application Performance assessment Surgical training Entrustable professional activity |
| title | Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training |
| title_full | Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training |
| title_fullStr | Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training |
| title_full_unstemmed | Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training |
| title_short | Surgery goes EPA (Entrustable Professional Activity) – how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training |
| title_sort | surgery goes epa entrustable professional activity how a strikingly easy to use app revolutionizes assessments of clinical skills in surgical training |
| topic | Mobile application Performance assessment Surgical training Entrustable professional activity |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03622-1 |
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