Educational Framework Initiative, Office of Naval Research

The Federal Medical Simulation Training Consortium (FMSTC) is a partnership of Department of Defense and other federal institutions, each of which is involved in medical training and education. CRESST is developing tools, templates, and methodologies to allow the consortium to survey each institution's curriculum to develop a curriculum framework that will allow current curricula to be categorized, searched, and compared. A template will be developed for each category to guide evaluation and refinement of existing curricula and development of new curricula, and a set of training effectiveness metrics to allow comparison of curricula within a category. CRESST will also develop and implement operational procedures for maintaining and developing curricula within the framework. These procedures, developed with support from subject matter experts provided by FMSTC, will include an FMSTC-wide strategy to collect, maintain, and analyze performance metrics, and policies for creating, maintaining, and removing curricula from the framework.

For more information please contact:
Richard Wainess, Ph.D., Senior Researcher
Phone: 310-206-5561
Email: wainess@cse.ucla.edu

Detection and Analysis of Psychological Signals, Office of Naval Research and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the DCAPS development team is looking for ways to assess individual psychological status by analyzing patterns of social media and smart phone use. CRESST is evaluating the technologies, analysis techniques, and applications. Our goals are to:

1. Evaluate the accuracy, usability, and user acceptability of these assessment tools.

2. Determine, to the extent supported by the evaluation data, if combinations of these systems (or their sub-subsystems) would be better than using the individual assessment tools by themselves.

For more information please contact:
Roy Stripling, Ph.D., Assistant Director for Assessment
Phone: 310-794-9166
Email: stripling@cse.ucla.edu

Evaluation of Simulations for Assessing Medical Education and Training, Office of Naval Research/ Army Telemedicine & Technology Research Center (TATRC)

Simulations have become common in medical education. They can be used for instruction or assessment, and are currently used by many medical schools for end-of-course comprehensive examinations and as part of the licensure process in many countries including the United States. Because simulations are created explicitly to serve more than one measurement purpose, e.g., selection, placement, diagnosis, monitoring, certification, and program evaluation, the technical attributes needed to optimize or satisfy multiple purposes require rethinking of some of the traditional approaches available in performance measurement research. To meet this need, CRESST researchers are conducting a series of workshops on the use of modeling and simulation technologies to assess medical practice and learning. The first workshop focused on the research basis for a psychometrics of medical simulations and the development of methodology for the validation of medical simulations. The second workshop is concerned with related policy issues, and the third workshop focuses on certification issues. CRESST is producing relevant reports and products that build upon all three workshops. Papers from the first workshop will be published in a supplement to the journal Military Medicine.

Sonosimulator Efficacy Study, Pelagique, LLC.

The use of portable ultrasound is increasing in military settings such as combat support hospitals as a triage and evaluation tool. Ultrasonography complements standard evaluation techniques and can improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis of blunt abdominal trauma. Unfamiliarity with ultrasonography, the cost of training users on ultrasound-guided procedures, and the lack of training opportunities are limiting the use of this beneficial technology. One potentially cost-effective method for providing users with ultrasound-guided procedural training is the use of simulator-based training. Part of the Combat Casualty Care Training Program and funded by Pelagique, LLC, CRESST supported Pelagique in evaluating a simulation-based ultrasound trainer, assisting in study design, task development, data collection, analysis, and reporting, validation of the measures and the effectiveness of the training intervention.

Outcomes
The effects of simulator-based virtual ultrasound scanning practice was compared to classroom-based ultrasound scanning practice on participants' knowledge of FAST window quadrants and interpretation, and on participants' performance on live patient FAST exams. Overall, classroom-based practice appeared to promote physical acquisition skills and simulator-based practice appeared to promote window interpretation skills. The simulator used (SonoSimulator™) was well received by participants and appears promising as a training tool to increase probe time and to increase exposure to FAST windows reflecting various anatomy and disease states.

For more information please contact:
Greg Chung, Ph.D., Senior Researcher
Phone: 310-794-4392
Email: greg@ucla.edu