The Confidence and Abilities to Assess a Simulated Patient Using Telemedicine

Abstract

Context Telemedicine is the practice of providing diagnostic consultations and therapeutic interventions to patients at a distance using some form of technology. Typically, health care students do not have the opportunity to practice telemedicine. Objective To investigate athletic training students' ability to transfer telemedicine skills confidently and accurately in a standardized patient (SP) encounter. Design Single cohort. Setting Simulation center. Patients or Other Participants Fifty-five second-year athletic training students (age = 25 ± 3 years) from 6 professional master's athletic training programs volunteered for the study after a 1-week online learning experience about telemedicine. Intervention(s) We scheduled individual SP encounters that were completed at a distance using telepresence robots. Main Outcome Measure(s) Pre– and post–SP encounter validated confidence assessment and a 50-item content checklist (yes or no) scored by one evaluator. Results During the SP encounter, 87.3% of participants correctly diagnosed the SP actor with a lateral ankle sprain. We identified a significant improvement in confidence (P ≤ .001) for using telemedicine technology. On the content checklist, participants scored poorly in the constructs of data gathering (mean = 7.44 ± 2.36 of 15, 49.58% ± 15.75%) and telemedicine (mean = 6.02 ± 2.74 of 14, 42.99% ± 19.56%), but scored well in the constructs of communication/interpersonal skills (mean = 12.05 ± 2.00 of 15, 80.36% ± 13.36%) and patient education (mean = 4.64 ± 1.06 of 6, 77.27% ± 17.67%). The mean sum score of all constructs on the SP encounter was moderate (30.15 ± 5.79 of 50, 60.29% ± 11.59%). Conclusions Exposure to telemedicine via an SP encounter improved confidence in performing the tech-based evaluation. Athletic training students performed well in demonstrating communication/interpersonal skills and patient education, yet struggled in their data gathering and telemedicine skills. Overall, participants accurately diagnosed a musculoskeletal condition using telemedicine.