Skip to main content

Master of Public Health

Multiyear Experience with Mobile Online Platform for Documentation of Acute Care Surgery Fellows Supervision

AUTHORS

Gunter OL , Devasahayam RJ , Dennis BM , Gondek SP , Adams RC , Guillamondegui OD , . The journal of trauma and acute care surgery. 2022 11 28; ().

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: There is currently no standard for documenting supervision of acute care surgery (ACS) fellows. To accomplish this goal, we developed a web-based survey that is accessible via mobile platform. We hypothesize that our mobile access survey is an effective, reproducible tool for assessing fellow clinical performance.

METHODS: A retrospective review from 2016-2022 of all data captured in an encrypted database on all ACS fellows at our institution was performed. Supervision was defined as: type 1 direct face-to-face, type 2a immediately available in-house, type 2b available after notification via phone with remote electronic medical record access, and type 3 retrospective review. Data were collected by supervising faculty using a web-based clinical performance survey created by fellowship program leadership. Survey data collected included clinical summary, trainee, proctoring faculty, clinical service, operative/nonoperative, supervision type, Zwisch autonomy scale, time to input data, and graduate medical education (GME) milestone performance. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

RESULTS: A total of 883 proctoring events were identified, including the majority as type 1 (97.4%). Trauma comprised 64% of evaluations. 52% of the proctoring events were surgical cases. Complexity was graded as average (77%), hardest (16%), basic (7%). Guidance included supervision only, 491/666 (74%), with 26% requiring faculty intervention. Fellow performance was graded as average (66%), above average (31%), and below average/critical deficiency (3%). GME performance was available for 247/883 interactions identifying 31 events with potential for improvement. Average evaluation completion time: 2 minutes (n = 134).

CONCLUSIONS: A mobile web-based survey is a convenient and reliable tool for documenting ACS fellow clinical activity and was effectively utilized by all ACS faculty to record supervision. A combination of clinical and objective data are useful to determine ACS fellows’ performance and to provide targeted education and remediation.Study type: Original research, case series.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: IV.

Tags: