In 2004, the Post Graduate Medical Education Office (PGME) at the University of Toronto developed a procedure-logging system housed in POWER, the PGME central registration and evaluation system. It allowed learners to log their procedures completed during clinical training. It subsequently provided Program Directors with procedure completion rates and demographic information (i.e., where procedures are completed).
The application was developed by one PGME program (Internal Medicine). As a result, the application’s functionality did not meet the needs of every program. Moreover, no enhancements or updates had been made to the system since its implementation. The data entry component was very cumbersome and needed to be completed at a desktop often long after the procedure took place.
In September 2012, the POWER Steering Committee approved development of an updated, mobile friendly, procedure-logging system. In order to best meet the needs to learners and Program Directors, stakeholders were invited to four Procedure Log focus group meetings. Through these focus group meetings, universal key elements were identified and a framework was developed to give each program the flexibility to customize its procedure-logging system.
This project demonstrated a successful framework for gathering application requirements and a way to build flexibility to accommodate multiple programs. Since the release of this enhancement, more programs have also begun using the procedure-logging application. Informal feedback indicates that learners have been logging more procedures using the application on mobile devices.
Of Interest to: Post-secondary education, Instructional designers, Researchers, Educational technologists, Administrators
