TITLE:
CyberPatientTM—An Innovative Approach to Medical Education
AUTHORS:
Sahar Farahmand, Adam Meneghetti, Kevin Shi, George Pachev, Javad Ramezani, Sara Zeinoddini, Vahid Mehrnoush, Shahriar Hosseinzadeh, Hannah Kapur, Abdul Karim Qayumi
KEYWORDS:
Cyberpatient, Online Learning, Online Simulation, Innovation, Cost-Effectiveness
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.11 No.6,
June
30,
2020
ABSTRACT:
Background: Variety of tools has been used to teach history-taking skills to novice learners.
Standardized Patient (SP) is the gold standard for medical education. We
hypothesized that the use of online simulation platforms CyberPatientTM (CP) is
as effective as SP. Methods: In this prospective randomized controlled trial study, the educational effectiveness of CP was compared to SP in
improving history taking skills. Twenty-two incoming students
at University of British Columbia (UBC) were randomly divided
in to two (SP and CP) groups. SP Group (n = 11) practiced their history taking
skills with the standardized patients and CP Group (n = 11)—with CyberPatients. The content for both groups included 3 cases of GI
pathology and the study time was 60 minutes. Assessment method included
Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) before and after
interventions. Data were analysed in a two-way between/within
ANOVA and Wald test was used to deal with the violation of the ANOVA
assumptions. Economic benefits were assessed as Cost-effectiveness (calculated
as Cost/Effect Ratio) and Cost-Value Proposition (Cost-Vale Relationship). Results: Results of this study indicated that both groups had significant (SP group p = 0.006
and CP group p = 0.0001) improvement in the knowledge domain of history taking.
The history taking knowledge variable in both groups manifested a significant
main effect of time indicating that students did better after interventions, F
(1, 15.1) = 10.5, p = 0.011. The
groups performed at a similar level after intervention. Moreover, results show
that the use of the CP is more cost-effective and has a better cost/value
proposition for medical education. Conclusion: We conclude that
CyberPatientTM is as effective as using standardized patients in delivery of
practical knowledge for novice medical students, however, CyberPatientTM is more
economically rewarding.