gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Workplace-based assessments (WBPA), such as Mini-CEX (mini-clinical examination) and DOPS (direct observed procedural skills), serve as tools for providing feedback in order to optimize the attainment and quality of medical competencies. They have been adopted for medical students and implemented as a compulsory formative element of post-graduate specialist-training in Switzerland. High-quality feedback from clinicians is therefore crucial. However, numerous limitations make the effective and efficient use of WBPA more difficult. Time consumption, binding of personal resources, necessity to use and archive printed forms, ambiguous criteria as well as low familiarity with the evaluation tools and lack of guidance on how good feedback should look like have drawn criticism to paper-based WBPA.

Objectives: We developed an easy-to-use electronic app addressing the above mentioned criticism. It provides not only structure and guidance for the execution, it also allows archiving, retrieval, analysis and reporting of WBPA.

Materials & Methods: While newly developed checklists for the evaluation tools Mini-CEX and DOPS yield discrete values, voice recordings provide rich and nuanced feedback. Checklist items were operationalized at the extremes for better guidance of the rater and evaluated by custom-made positive, verbal-anchored, standardized Likert type. The concept of the iOS app is to follow a minimalistic process-oriented, intuitive approach, facilitating its use.

Results: The alpha version of the app is running on iPhone® and iPod Touch®. Evaluations of trainees and trainers can be synchronized and compared next to each other, and hence, used as a basis for the feedback and formulation of goals. Digital documentation and narrative feedback allow enhanced intra-individual follow-up and inter-individual comparison.

Conclusion: With the new app, Responso, we expect an improved applicability and acceptance in everyday clinical practice by a simplified assessment process, reduced administrative effort, and guidance on differentiated feedback.