Evaluating the Impact and ROI of Medical Education Programs

Medical education programs must deliver valued results that stakeholders expect in return for their funding investments. In the past, healthcare organizations accepted reports about test results and participant perceptions of the program as adequate evidence of course outcomes. Today, program funders expect evaluations that provide evidence that medical education programs improve organizational excellence measures to justify ongoing funding. This chapter will explain four of the five elements required of a proven, comprehensive evaluation system. This five-element system is necessary to provide the desired organizational excellence evidence that medical educators can adopt to address the needs of stakeholders at different levels of an organization. Specifically, this chapter will overview an evaluation framework, a process model, and guiding principles that are crucial elements of this methodology. The chapter ends with a case study that shows how a medical education team used this measurement and evaluation methodology to plan how they would design and evaluate a medical education program requested by executives to solve an ICU central line infection problem.

Leader Launch

This case study examines how a rural healthcare system implemented LeaderLaunch, a leadership development program specifically supporting all front-line to director-level leaders employed within the organization's facilities. John DeJoria, the healthcare system's Director of Organizational Development, is a seasoned instructional designer and Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) who was charged with the opportunity of determining the system's leadership development needs and responding with aligned performance improvement interventions, intended to build competency and capacity in current, new, and emerging leadership. This case explains how John and his team designed, conducted, and utilized a three phase needs assessment to select and design instructional and non-instructional interventions.

Creating an Infrastructure to Deliver Meaningful Feedback to Nursing Students

Research studies surrounding feedback primarily centered on frameworks designed as models for delivering feedback as well as the timing for delivering feedback. In addition, past research has also focused on individual elements that affect performance with little regard to environmental elements. This case study provides an overview of how a nurse educator utilized a performance analysis approach to providing feedback to nursing students during clinical rotations. A list of performance standards was provided to students at various checkpoints during their clinical rotation. Strategies are shared for improving the type of feedback used in healthcare settings.

Understanding Modern Learners, Technology, and Medical Education

Clinicians and researchers are expected to educate the next generation of clinicians with little or no formal education on effective, modern instructional design. Clinicians and researchers are left to teach in the same way they were taught many years or decades ago. Medical education must adapt to meet the demands of the Generation Y student population that would benefit from the innovative use of instructional technology. This generation thrives in small groups, using social media, and has never known a world without Google. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate innovative curricular design strategies using technology to leverage the skills and preferences that Generation Y brings to a medical classroom.

Virtual Reality Stereoscopic 180-Degree Video-Based Immersive Environments

The theoretical and practical applications of immersive VR, although relatively new, have accomplished much in the area of pedagogical learner applications. This chapter describes the conceptual framework and Revinax® 180-degree stereoscopic video-based approach in addressing the academic achievement gap through conventional surgical students and nurses shadowing and how immersive VR environments may best address leveraging the learner's capability of increasing their skill acquisition, learning, and knowledge retention in a more efficient time-period, circumventing the inherent issues with conventional shadowing. Further, these VR experiences through first-person Point of View (POV), although simulated and artificial, evoke mirror neurons, and can recruit neurocircuitry that are imperative for skill acquisition and later skill application. As such, the Revinax® instructional design model may provide a unique insight in how to use immersive VR environments to teach any learner that seeks to acquire surgical/medical professional training more efficiently and practically in a modern world of technology.

My Life, My Story

Contemporary healthcare institutions strive to provide humanistic and patient-centered healthcare. To reach this goal, healthcare systems must first look to the patient as a person, before treating a specific malady or pathology. This chapter will illustrate a humanistic approach to the provision of healthcare using the case of the My Life, My Story program in the United States Veterans Health Administration. My Life, My Story is a patient-centered, life story work intervention where learners complete a life story interview with a veteran using standardized prompts from the My Life, My Story protocol. This chapter will describe the My Life My Story program at the VA Boston Healthcare System, the steps and rationale in program development and discussion of impact on the learners, the patients, and humanizing the healthcare system.

Collaborative Instructional Design Strategies in an Online Health Systems Pharmacy Degree Program

This case study describes both the process and outcome for instructional design strategies used in the design and development of a fully online Health-System Pharmacy Administration (HSPA) M.S. degree program. The development of this online degree program was a partnership between two Midwest higher education institutions: a public research university (PRU) and an interprofessional health sciences university (HSU). The PRU had instructional designers experienced with creating fully-online graduate degree programs, while the HSU had knowledgeable faculty, staff, and administrators associated with the HSPA program. Instructional designers from the public research university designed the courses collaboratively with HSPA instructors, most of whom were health care professionals with minimal background in online teaching strategies. The instructional designers created an enhanced design process that infused the collaboration with faculty development in online teaching, as well as some amount of technology training for the Learning Management System used in the HSPA program.

Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating Performance-Based Assessments Within a Competency-Driven Curriculum

This case explores the development, implementation, and ongoing evaluation of performance-based assessments (PBAs) utilized within a competency-based curriculum at Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy (AU HSOP). Comprised of over 270 practice-based competencies, the newly adopted curriculum was designed to equip graduates with the knowledge, skills, and abilities essential for a practicing pharmacist. Early in the curriculum development process, hands-on authentic assessment practices were identified as a key assessment strategy resulting in the integration of PBAs throughout the curriculum. This case will describe the PBA development process adopted by AU HSOP, including specific implementation considerations, and explore the role of PBAs in assessing student progression.

Consensus Building Using Quality Improvement Tools During the Instructional Design Process

This case outlines the process of using quality improvement tools during the instructional systems design process. The clerkship curriculum of the third year of medical school was undergoing a complete reform in terms of time and content. An instructional designer was utilized to complete a needs analysis and participate in the instructional systems design process. A need for a common understanding of the language of medical education and instructional design drove the team to utilize the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Quality Improvement tools. The reform took 11 months, involved six clerkship directors, multiple administrators, and resulted in consensus among the clerkship directors regarding the knowledge, skills, and attitudes appropriate for a third-year medical student curriculum.

Infection Prevention and Control Training-Design of a Workbook Prototype

This case describes the instructional design process of a workbook accompanying a four-day infection prevention and control global training. Working closely with global health professionals, the instructional designer assessed the needs, the attitudes of learners, and conducted a task analysis of the training content. Subsequently, she designed instructional strategies with special attention to cognitive load, sequencing, and generative learning. Then she created formative and summative assessment strategies and developed a prototype for testing. This case explores how the instructional designer collaborated closely with the global health team to review the content material of the training and design the workbook accordingly.