Abstract:

Objective VaveHealth is a company that developed an app-based POCUS (Point of Care Ultrasound) education platform. Our objective is to provide educators with insights into novel approaches to medical education by comparing the platform to PowerPoint-based education, the standard and current technique used to instruct medical students in the United States.

Methods We used a non-inferiority study to assess if the app-based platform was not less efficacious than the current standard of PowerPoint-based education. Thirty-three military medical students were provided with app-based or PowerPoint-based education for instructions on performing a focused assessment with sonography for trauma (FAST exam). Physicians evaluated each image and assigned a score from 1-5. The final scores were the average of all views. In addition, a two-sample t-test of the final scores and each view of the FAST was used to measure whether the VaveHealth platform was non-inferior to a PowerPoint-based model.

Results Overall, the VaveHealth group had lower average scores on each view and a lower average total score. There was no statistically significant difference in overall scores (VaveHealth = 7.65, PowerPoint = 9.04, P = 0.07). Subgroup analysis showed no statistically significant difference in student performance in the views of the splenorenal recess (VaveHealth score = 1.60, PowerPoint score = 1.65, P = 0.42), hepatorenal recess (VaveHealth score = 2.45, PowerPoint score = 3.00, P = 0.11), and suprapubic (VaveHealth score = 2.10, PowerPoint score = 2.46, P = 0.23) regions. In the subxiphoid region, students in the VaveHealth had a statistically significantly lower average score (VaveHealth score = 1.70, PowerPoint score = 2.08, P = 0.04).

Conclusion VaveHealth education is not a viable alternative to traditional PowerPoint education for POCUS training based on the lower raw scores and statistically significantly lower scores on one of the views of the FAST exam.

Key words: POCUS; App-based; Education platforms; HPSP