Pilot implementation of a telehealth course for health professions students.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the level of technology proficiency amongst healthcare professions students. Additionally, the study provides an evaluation of the pilot implementation, as well as the effect of a 7-module telehealth course on the level of adoption and future use of telehealth amongst future Australian healthcare workforce. METHODS: Students from four health-sciences departments at the University of Melbourne, Australia, participated in this pilot study by completing the course and an online questionnaire, which included both structured and open-ended questions. The questionnaire included: 12-items on socio-demographic and Internet utilization; 34-items about acceptance and use of telehealth adapted from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) questionnaire; and 22-items about confidence in using the Internet and ICT, adapted from Technology Proficiency Self-Assessment Questionnaire for 21st Century Learning (TPSA-C-21). RESULTS: The evaluation included 26 students who expressed confidence in their Internet/ICT skills They showed enthusiasm for telehealth and recognized its potential benefits, but also emphasized the value of face-to-face interactions. They requested information on legal and aspects and additional learning. Post-test assessments indicated improvements in overall acceptance and use attitudes towards telehealth and on six dimensions of the UTAUT2 instrument. Participation in the course indicated improvements in students' overall acceptance and use attitudes and on six of the ten dimensions of the UTAUT2 instrument (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: This preliminary evaluation indicated that the telehealth course was a positive and enjoyable learning experience for students with appropriate structure and information. The course was successful in improving students' acceptance and use of health technology. The study identified areas in which further development might be required. As such, the course represents a helpful approach for telehealth training among health professions students. Further evaluation with larger samples is required.

The irtQ R package: a user-friendly tool for item response theory-based test data analysis and calibration.

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) has become a widely adopted test design for high-stakes licensing and certification exams, particularly in the health professions in the United States, due to its ability to tailor test difficulty in real time, reducing testing time while providing precise ability estimates. A key component of CAT is item response theory (IRT), which facilitates the dynamic selection of items based on examinees' ability levels during a test. Accurate estimation of item and ability parameters is essential for successful CAT implementation, necessitating convenient and reliable software to ensure precise parameter estimation. This paper introduces the irtQ R package, which simplifies IRT-based analysis and item calibration under unidimensional IRT models. While it does not directly simulate CAT, it provides essential tools to support CAT development, including parameter estimation using marginal maximum likelihood estimation via the expectation-maximization algorithm, pretest item calibration through fixed item parameter calibration and fixed ability parameter calibration methods, and examinee ability estimation. The package also enables users to compute item and test characteristic curves and information functions necessary for evaluating the psychometric properties of a test. This paper illustrates the key features of the irtQ package through examples using simulated datasets, demonstrating its utility in IRT applications such as test data analysis and ability scoring. By providing a user-friendly environment for IRT analysis, irtQ significantly enhances the capacity for efficient adaptive testing research and operations. Finally, the paper highlights additional core functionalities of irtQ, emphasizing its broader applicability to the development and operation of IRT-based assessments.

Widening the Gates: Redefining Excellence in Selection for Health Professions Education for a Diverse Future Workforce.

To ensure diversity in the healthcare workforce selection committees must select a cohort of students who collectively possess the wide variety of qualities necessary to serve societal needs. In practice, selection procedures primarily focus on predicting academic outcomes, which are currently based on a limited set of qualities, restricting the definition of excellence in healthcare. The authors propose a shift in the design of selection procedures by including additional considerations - student diversity and applicant perception - to select talented students who can fulfil societal needs. The authors explain the importance of incorporating these considerations into the design of selection procedures and challenges that may arise. To overcome the challenges of incorporating student diversity and applicant perception in the design of selection procedures, a new view on alignment between the profession, training and selection is needed. This starts with redefining excellence in the profession with more explicit attention to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). The authors argue that by employing an EDI-adjusted model of alignment, selection procedures can enhance academic outcomes, properly recognize the talents of and acknowledge the needs for a diverse future workforce and be perceived as fair by applicants.

Avoiding common pitfalls in mixed methods research?

This column is intended to address the kinds of knotty problems and dilemmas with which many scholars grapple in studying health professions education. In this article, the authors focus on how to help mentees take an analytic approach to improve their mixed methods work. Mixed methods research has increased in popularity and with that comes both strengths and weaknesses in these studies. We suggest key elements to look for when reading a mixed methods research paper. We also provide guidance around weaknesses we have noticed in reporting.

Eight ways to get a grip on validity as a social imperative.

Validity as a social imperative foregrounds the social consequences of assessment and highlights the importance of building quality into the assessment development and monitoring processes. Validity as a social imperative is informed by current assessment trends such as programmatic-, longitudinal-, and rater-based assessment, and is one of the conceptualizations of validity currently at play in the Health Professions Education (HPE) literature. This Black Ice is intended to help readers to get a grip on how to embed principles of validity as a social imperative in the development and quality monitoring of an assessment. This piece draws on a program of work investigating validity as a social imperative, key HPE literature, and data generated through stakeholder interviews. We describe eight ways to implement validation practices that align with validity as a social imperative.

La validité en tant qu'impératif social met de l'avant les conséquences de l'évaluation des apprentissages sur la société et souligne l'importance d'intégrer la qualité dans le développement et le monitoring de l'évaluation des apprentissages. La validité en tant qu'impératif social est influencée par les tendances actuelles en matière d'évaluation, telles que l'évaluation programmatique, longitudinale et l'évaluation par des évaluateurs. La validité en tant qu'impératif social fait partie des conceptualisations actuellement présentes dans les écrits scientifiques dans le contexte de la pédagogie des sciences de la santé. Ce texte a pour but d'aider les lecteurs à comprendre comment intégrer les principes de validité en tant qu'impératif social dans le développement et le suivi de qualité d'une évaluation. Cet article s'appuie sur un programme de recherche qui examine la validité en tant qu'impératif social, sur les écrits scientifiques en pédagogie des sciences de la santé et des données provenant d'entrevues avec différentes parties prenantes. Nous décrivons huit façons de mettre en œuvre des pratiques de validation qui sont en accord avec la validité en tant qu'impératif social.

Improving selection procedures in health professions education from the applicant perspective: an interview study.

INTRODUCTION: Applicant perceptions of selection impact motivation and performance during selection, and student diversity. However, in-depth insight into which values underly these perceptions is lacking, creating challenges for aligning selection procedures with applicant perceptions. This qualitative interview study aimed to identify values applicants believe should underlie selection, and how, according to applicants, these values should be used to make specific improvements to selection procedures in undergraduate health professions education (HPE). METHODS: Thirty-one applicants to five undergraduate HPE programs in the Netherlands participated in semi-structured interviews using Appreciative Inquiry, an approach that focuses on what goes well to create vision for improvement, to guide the interviews. Transcriptions were analyzed using thematic analysis, adopting a constructivist approach. RESULTS: Applicants' values related to the aims of selection, the content of selection, and the treatment of applicants. Applicants believed that selection procedures should aim to identify students who best fit the training and profession, and generate diverse student populations to fulfill societal needs. According to applicants, the content of selection should be relevant for the curriculum and profession, assess a comprehensive set of attributes, be of high quality, allow applicants to show who they are, and be adapted to applicants' current developmental state. Regarding treatment, applicants believed that selection should be a two-way process that fosters reflection on study choice, be transparent about what applicants can expect, safeguard applicants' well-being, treat all applicants equally, and employ an equitable approach by taking personal circumstances into account. Applicants mentioned specific improvements regarding each value. DISCUSSION: Applicants' values offer novel insights into what they consider important preconditions for the design of selection procedures. Their suggested improvements can support selection committees in better meeting applicants' needs.

The Digital Determinants of Health: A Guide for Competency Development in Digital Care Delivery for Health Professions Trainees.

Unlabelled: Health care delivery is undergoing an accelerated period of digital transformation, spurred in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of "virtual-first" care delivery models such as telemedicine. Medical education has responded to this shift with calls for improved digital health training, but there is as yet no universal understanding of the needed competencies, domains, and best practices for teaching these skills. In this paper, we argue that a "digital determinants of health" (DDoH) framework for understanding the intersections of health outcomes, technology, and training is critical to the development of comprehensive digital health competencies in medical education. Much like current social determinants of health models, the DDoH framework can be integrated into undergraduate, graduate, and professional education to guide training interventions as well as competency development and evaluation. We provide possible approaches to integrating this framework into training programs and explore priorities for future research in digitally-competent medical education.

From individual to interprofessional: characteristics of assessment tasks to assess interprofessional collaboration in healthcare education.

To develop independent healthcare professionals able to collaborate in interprofessional teams, health professions education aims to support students in transitioning from an individual perspective to interprofessional collaboration. The five elements that yield the conditions for effective interprofessional collaboration are: (1) positive interdependence, (2) individual accountability, (3) promotive interaction, (4) interpersonal skills, and (5) reflection on team processes. The aim of the current study is to gain insights into how to design tasks to assess a student team as a whole on their interprofessional collaboration. This was a pilot study using a qualitative design to evaluate an interprofessional assessment task. Four interprofessional student teams, comprising physiotherapy, occupational therapy, arts therapy and nursing students (N = 13), completed this task and five assessors used a rubric to assess video recordings of the teams' task completion, and then participated in a group interview. The completed rubrics and the interview transcript were analyzed using content analysis. Findings showed that the combination of individual preparation, an interprofessional team meeting resulting in care agreements and team reflection was a strength of the assessment task, enabling the task to elicit sufficient promotive interaction between students. Areas for improvement of the assessment task were however, due to a lack of interdependence, the care agreements which now proved to be the sum of students' intraprofessional ideas rather than an interprofessional integration of agreements. Additionally, assessors suggested that a series of varying assessment tasks is required to draw conclusions about students' interprofessional competence.

ALLin4IPE- an international research study on interprofessional health professions education: a protocol for an ethnographic multiple-case study of practice architectures in sites of students' interprofessional clinical placements across four universities.

BACKGROUND: The global discourse on future health care emphasises that learning to collaborate across professions is crucial to assure patient safety and meet the changing demands of health care. The research on interprofessional education (IPE) is diverse but with gaps in curricula design and how IPE is enacted in practice. PURPOSE AND AIMS: This research project will identify. 1) how IPE in clinical placements emerges, evolves, and is enacted by students when embedded in local health care practices, 2) factors critical for the design of IPE for students at clinical placements across the four countries. METHODS: A study involving four countries (Sweden, Norway, Australia and New Zealand) using the theory of practice architectures will be undertaken between 2023 and 2027. The project is designed as an international, collaborative multiple-case ethnographic study, using the theoretical framework of practice architectures (TPA). It will include four ethnographic case studies of IPE, one in each country. Data will be collected in the following sequence: (1) participant observation of students during interprofessional placements, (2) interviews with students at clinical placement and stakeholders/professionals, (3) Non-clinical documents may be used to support the analysis, and collection of photos may be use as memory aids for documenting context. An analysis of "sayings, doings and relatings" will address features of the cultural- discursive, material-economic, social-political elements making up the three key dimensions of TPA. Each of the four international cases will be analysed separately. A cross case analysis will be undertaken to establish common learning and critical IPE design elements across the four collaborating universities. DISCUSSION: The use of TPA framework and methodology in the analysis of data will make it possible to identify comparable dimensions across the four research sites, enabling core questions to be addressed critical for the design of IPE. The ethnographic field studies will generate detailed descriptions that take account of country-specific cultural and practice contexts. The study will also generate new knowledge as to how IPE can be collaboratively researched.

Technological Literacy as a Framework for Health Professions Education in the Digital Era.

With increasing use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in health, and rapid technological changes, there is a pressing need to prepare current and future health professionals to use ICTs as an integral part of their practice. We propose the Technological Literacy Framework, which includes 3 interlinked elements-knowledge, capabilities, and critical thinking and decision making-as an overarching structure for organizing and designing competencies, learning objectives, and educational interventions for health professions education in the digital era. We provide examples of EHR and telehealth educational interventions and how they map to the framework.

An Innovative Course on Involving Patients in Health Professions Education.

Background & Need for Innovation: Patients can be actively involved in various aspects of health professions education (HPE). However, learners in HPE graduate programs have minimal opportunities to learn how to involve patients in HPE. Steps Taken for Development and Implementation of Innovation: We designed, implemented, and evaluated a 12-week asynchronous, online graduate course that provides learners such opportunities. We established an advisory committee of patients, clinician-educators, and professors to guide course development. Using Thomas et al.'s framework, we established the general and targeted need for the course, identified the learning outcomes, determined the learning activities, and implemented and evaluated the course. It is offered within the asynchronous, online Diploma and Master in HPE at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Evaluation of Innovation: Forty learners participated in the course between 2020 and 2022. Using a survey with closed- and open-ended items, learners reported satisfaction with all course components, and they valued the patient narrative videos created for the course. After course completion, learners reported that the course is relevant to their professional practice. They also reported confidence in their abilities to actively involve patients in HPE. Based on the culminating assignment assessment data, learners attained course expectations. Critical Reflection: Although patients who participated in the narrative videos represented diverse age ranges, health conditions, and experiences in HPE, they were often Caucasian, educated, and from a higher socio-economic background. Also, the level of engagement between patients and learners in the course was limited. We are committed to improving our own patient involvement efforts.

Design and development of an arena blended connected learning model for faculty development in health professions education: A step forward.

Current medical education and clinical practice has led to a need for advanced faculty development for medical teachers to effectively play the role of educators, researchers and administrators. There is large variability in the teaching programmes across countries, which range from a one-time activity to regularly scheduled workshops and seminars, to a highly advanced course spanning a few months to a year. Several healthcare institutes around the world offer faculty training programmes in health professions education, where the curriculum varies in design as they are developed and implemented by their own institutional body or education unit. Following a discussion of arena blended connected (ABC) learning design during a faculty training programme (Postgraduate Diploma in Health Professions Education) and the subsequent move towards an online approach to education due to the pandemic in 2019, the advisory faculty and students started to envision designing the already existing Postgraduate Diploma in Health Professions Education curriculum along the ABC model favouring blended and outcome-based education. Criteria were set for each topic with clearly defined learning levels to be implemented and the frequency of implementation. We describe the design and development of a curriculum for faculty development of health professions education using the ABC model.

Impact of an E-Learning Histology Course on the Satisfaction and Performance of Medical, Nursing and Midwifery Students / Impacto de un Curso E-Learning de Histología en la Satisfacción y Desempeño de Estudiantes de Medicina, Enfermería y Obstetricia

SUMMARY: The importance and relevance of e-learning courses in medicine and health sciences has increased significantly in the last decade. Despite this, there are few published teaching experiences of e-learning histology courses in the literature worldwide. The histology course we designed was structured on the Moodle platform as a learning management system, and the content was proposed in a synchronous (zoom) and asynchronous (recordings) format. We also included the use of free virtual microscopy tools. This study aimed to investigate the impact of an e-learning histology course on the satisfaction and performance of medical, nursing and midwifery students. The sample included 424 Chilean medical, nursing, and midwifery students from two cohorts. A Likert-type survey was administered at the end of the course. We performed exploratory analysis and ordinary least squares regression. In this study, we present a positive experience of an e-learning histology course. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three main factors related to "e- learning satisfaction", "in-person class activities", and "course design and teaching quality". We also found that there was a positive and significant relationship between students' perceptions of the adaptation of the traditional (face-to-face) histology course into an e-learning format and their academic performance. Our study shows that e-learning histology courses that integrate lectures and practical sessions can be a valuable teaching method for learning histology. Curriculum developers and teachers need to consider the limitations and advantages of this type of teaching and incorporate these three factors into the design and assessment of e-learning histology courses.

La importancia y relevancia de los cursos e-learning en medicina y ciencias de la salud ha aumentado significativamente en la última década. A pesar de ello, existen pocas experiencias docentes publicadas de cursos de histología e-learning en la literatura a nivel mundial. El curso de histología que diseñamos se estructuró en la plataforma Moodle, y los contenidos se propusieron en formato síncrono (zoom) y asíncrono (grabaciones). También incluimos el uso de herramientas gratuitas de microscopía virtual. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo investigar el impacto de un curso de histología e-learning en la satisfacción y el rendimiento de los estudiantes de medicina, enfermería y obstetricia. La muestra incluyó 424 estudiantes chilenos de medicina, enfermería y obstetricia de dos cohortes. Se aplicó una encuesta tipo Likert al final del curso. Se realizó un análisis exploratorio y una regresión por mínimos cuadrados ordinarios. En este estudio, presentamos una experiencia positiva de un curso de e-learning de histología. El análisis factorial exploratorio reveló tres factores principales relacionados con la "satisfacción sobre el aprendizaje e-learning", "clases presenciales versus clases virtuales" y el "diseño del curso y la calidad de la enseñanza". También encontramos que existía una relación positiva y significativa entre las percepciones de los estudiantes sobre la adaptación del curso de histología tradicional (presencial) a un formato e-learning y su rendimiento académico. Nuestro estudio muestra que los cursos de histología e-learning que integran clases teóricas y sesiones prácticas pueden ser una valiosa herramienta de enseñanza. Los responsables de la elaboración de planes de estudios y los profesores de histología deben tener en cuenta las limitaciones y ventajas de este tipo de enseñanza y sugerimos incorporar estos tres factores al diseño y la evaluación de los cursos de histología en línea.

Utility of the Jefferson teamwork observation guide for measuring collaborative practice competencies virtually, in-person, and across health professions: A Rasch Analysis.

Modern healthcare increasingly requires interprofessional teams to collaborate both in person and virtually to effectively achieve common goals. To prepare students for interprofessional collaborative practice (CP) universities need evaluation tools that can validly and reliably measure students' CP competencies after online and in-person interprofessional education. The Jefferson Teamwork Observation Guide® (JTOG) is a 360-degree evaluation tool previously validated to measure nationally-defined CP competencies. The psychometrics of the Individual JTOG have been examined in a sample of interprofessional healthcare students after online interprofessional education. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the Individual JTOG in 709 students after in-person interprofessional education using Rasch Modeling and compared results across collaborative settings and student professions. Results indicated that item and person statistics, unidimensionality, scaling performance, and local independence of the Individual JTOG were comparable between online and in-person samples, suggesting it is consistent in its measurement of CP competencies across collaborative settings. Psychometric properties were strong, but ceiling effects were present. Minor deviations were found in the Individual JTOG's unidimensionality between professional groups. The Values and Ethics construct was more strongly separated from others for nursing than other health professions. Recommendations for future research and possible adaptations to the instrument are discussed.

Readiness for interprofessional education among health profession lecturers at a University in Vietnam: A cross-sectional study.

Interprofessional education is acknowledged as an efficacious strategy for fostering collaboration among healthcare professionals, especially in developing countries where interdisciplinarity and cooperation among healthcare practitioners are notably deficient. The present study aimed to investigate the readiness among medical, pharmacy, public health, and nursing faculties for development of an IPE curriculum at a university in Vietnam. Employing a quantitative approach, the revised version of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) questionnaire, comprising 19 items, was utilized to gather data from sixty-nine lecturers, including 26 medicine, 23 pharmacy, 11 public health, and 9 nursing faculties. Total scores and subscores (pertaining to teamwork and collaboration, professional identity, and roles and responsibilities) were subjected to comparison using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. Findings revealed a high level of readiness among all faculty members toward IPE with little difference between each faculty. However, nursing lecturers exhibited a more favorable attitude toward the roles and responsibilities associated with IPE in contrast to their counterparts in the medicine faculty (1.89 ± 1.02 vs 3.15 ± 0.63, p = 0.0048). Further study with deep interview methods should be done to explore the barriers of faculty members as well as of the leadership in developing IPE.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions Contributing to the Training and Diversity of the Public Health and Health Care Workforce.

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), a Hispanic Serving and Carnegie R1 institution, serves as a pathway for socioeconomically diverse Hispanic/Latino (H/L) health profession students via equal-access strategies. The Center for Institutional Evaluation, Research, and Planning data illustrates UTEP's success in graduating H/L health professionals (i.e., allied health, nursing, pharmacy, and psychology) students between 2014 and 2023. Nearly 90% of these graduates are employed in Texas one year after graduation, and 85% remain employed after 10 years. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(S6):S472-S477. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307655) [Formula: see text].

Integrating virtual patients into undergraduate health professions curricula: a framework synthesis of stakeholders' opinions based on a systematic literature review.

BACKGROUND: Virtual patients (VPs) are widely used in health professions education. When they are well integrated into curricula, they are considered to be more effective than loosely coupled add-ons. However, it is unclear what constitutes their successful integration. The aim of this study was to identify and synthesise the themes found in the literature that stakeholders perceive as important for successful implementation of VPs in curricula. METHODS: We searched five databases from 2000 to September 25, 2023. We included qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods and descriptive case studies that defined, identified, explored, or evaluated a set of factors that, in the perception of students, teachers, course directors and researchers, were crucial for VP implementation. We excluded effectiveness studies that did not consider implementation characteristics, and studies that focused on VP design factors. We included English-language full-text reports and excluded conference abstracts, short opinion papers and editorials. Synthesis of results was performed using the framework synthesis method with Kern's six-step model as the initial framework. We appraised the quality of the studies using the QuADS tool. RESULTS: Our search yielded a total of 4808 items, from which 21 studies met the inclusion criteria. We identified 14 themes that formed an integration framework. The themes were: goal in the curriculum; phase of the curriculum when to implement VPs; effective use of resources; VP alignment with curricular learning objectives; prioritisation of use; relation to other learning modalities; learning activities around VPs; time allocation; group setting; presence mode; VPs orientation for students and faculty; technical infrastructure; quality assurance, maintenance, and sustainability; assessment of VP learning outcomes and learning analytics. We investigated the occurrence of themes across studies to demonstrate the relevance of the framework. The quality of the studies did not influence the coverage of the themes. CONCLUSIONS: The resulting framework can be used to structure plans and discussions around implementation of VPs in curricula. It has already been used to organise the curriculum implementation guidelines of a European project. We expect it will direct further research to deepen our knowledge on individual integration themes.