Teresa M. Chan

Free Open Access Meducation (FOAM): the rise of emergency medicine and critical care blogs and podcasts (2002-2013)

Disruptive technologies are revolutionising continuing professional development in emergency medicine and critical care (EMCC). Data on EMCC blogs and podcasts were gathered prospectively from 2002 through November 2013. During this time there was a rapid expansion of EMCC websites, from two blogs and one podcast in 2002 to 141 blogs and 42 podcasts in 2013. This paper illustrates the explosive growth of EMCC websites and provides a foundation that will anchor future research in this burgeoning field.

Twitter as a tool for communication and knowledge exchange in academic medicine: A guide for skeptics and novices

Abstract Twitter is a tool for physicians to increase engagement of learners and the public, share scientific information, crowdsource new ideas, conduct, discuss and challenge emerging research, pursue professional development and continuing medical education, expand networks around specialized topics and provide moral support to colleagues. However, new users or skeptics may well be wary of its potential pitfalls. The aims of this commentary are to discuss the potential advantages of the Twitter platform for dialogue among physicians, to explore the barriers to accurate and high-quality healthcare discourse and, finally, to recommend potential safeguards physicians may employ against these threats in order to participate productively.

The Social Media Index: Measuring the Impact of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Websites

Introduction The number of educational resources created for emergency medicine and critical care (EMCC) that incorporate social media has increased dramatically. With no way to assess their impact or quality, it is challenging for educators to receive scholarly credit and for learners to identify respected resources. The Social Media index (SMi) was developed to help address this. Methods We used data from social media platforms (Google PageRanks, Alexa Ranks, Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers, and Google+ Followers) for EMCC blogs and podcasts to derive three normalized (ordinal, logarithmic, and raw) formulas. The most statistically robust formula was assessed for 1) temporal stability using repeated measures and website age, and 2) correlation with impact by applying it to EMCC journals and measuring the correlation with known journal impact metrics. Results The logarithmic version of the SMi containing four metrics was the most statistically robust. It correlated significantly with website age (Spearman r=0.372; p<0.001) and repeated measures through seven months (r=0.929; p<0.001). When applied to EMCC journals, it correlated significantly with all impact metrics except number of articles published. The strongest correlations were seen with the Immediacy Index (r=0.609; p<0.001) and Article Influence Score (r=0.608; p<0.001). Conclusion The SMi’s temporal stability and correlation with journal impact factors suggests that it may be a stable indicator of impact for medical education websites. Further study is needed to determine whether impact correlates with quality and how learners and educators can best utilize this tool.

A Systematic Review and Qualitative Analysis to Determine Quality Indicators forHealth Professions Education Blogs and Podcasts.

BACKGROUND Historically, trainees in undergraduate and graduate health professions education have relied on secondary resources, such as textbooks and lectures, for core learning activities. Recently, blogs and podcasts have entered into mainstream usage, especially for residents and educators. These low-cost, widely available resources have many characteristics of disruptive innovations and, if they continue to improve in quality, have the potential to reinvigorate health professions education. One potential limitation of further growth in the use of these resources is the lack of information on their quality and effectiveness. OBJECTIVE To identify quality indicators for secondary resources that are described in the literature, which might be applicable to blogs and podcasts. METHODS Using a blended research methodology, we performed a systematic literature review using Google Scholar, MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and ERIC to identify quality indicators for secondary resources. A qualitative analysis of these indicators resulted in the organization of this information into themes and subthemes. Expert focus groups were convened to triangulate these findings and ensure that no relevant quality indicators were missed. RESULTS The literature search identified 4530 abstracts, and quality indicators were extracted from 157 articles. The qualitative analysis produced 3 themes (credibility, content, and design), 13 subthemes, and 151 quality indicators. CONCLUSIONS The list of quality indicators resulting from our analysis can be used by stakeholders, including learners, educators, academic leaders, and blog/podcast producers. Further studies are being conducted, which will refine the list into a form that is more structured and stratified for use by these stakeholders.

Ten Steps for Setting Up an Online Journal Club

Journal clubs have an extensive history that dates back to the time of Sir William Osler. They provide a venue to discuss the latest medical literature among groups of peers and are an innovative method for translating knowledge into practice within individual institutions. With advances in social media, journal clubs are poised to take an evolutionary step by harnessing digital connectivity. Online journal clubs are uniting hundreds of medical practitioners from around the world under the banner of one cause: enhancing knowledge translation of the medical literature without the limitations of geography. This article describes 10 steps for creating online journal clubs based on the experiences of a multidisciplinary team of clinicians and medical educators.

Five strategies to effectively use online resources in emergency medicine

EDUCATION/RESIDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE Five Strategies to Effectively Use Online Resources in Emergency Medicine Brent Thoma, MD, MA*; Nikita Joshi, MD; N. Seth Trueger, MD; Teresa M. Chan, MD; Michelle Lin, MD *Corresponding Author. E-mail: brent.thoma@usask.ca, Twitter: @Brent_Thoma. 0196-0644/

CJEM and the changing landscape of medical education and knowledge translation.

-see front matter Copyright

Derivation of Two Critical Appraisal Scores for Trainees to Evaluate Online Educational Resources: A METRIQ Study.

The papyrus leaf. The Gutenberg printing press. The Internet. What do all of these technologies have in common? They all have disrupted the way that we communicate. The adoption of technology occurs along a predictable curve. Innovators lead the way, taking a new concept and introducing it to the world. Next come the early adopters, often opinion leaders, who engage in new practices. Eventually, the majority develops an increasing interest in the phenomena and makes it their own. Now, communication within the emergency medicine (EM) community is being disrupted by the Free Open Access Medical (FOAM) education movement. A trend that started with a few innovators at the beginning of the millennium has led to a veritable explosion of resources, such as blogs and podcasts over the past decade. These resources, which are promoted primarily via social media, have shifted the way that knowledge is translated into practice. Recent studies have demonstrated that new media are being used for education with 97.7% of American residents spending at least one hour per week supplementing their traditional academic curricula with podcasts and 99.5% of Canadian residents using free online resources for their general EM education. Tellingly, residents value entertainment and used wikis, podcasts, and screencasts significantly more than their program directors. The impact of social media and these online resources is demonstrated by their followership. CJEM-online.ca (CJEM’s primary website until 2015) received an average of 43,000 page views/month in 2014. BoringEM.org, a blog founded by an EM resident (Thoma), receives approximately 35,000 page views/month, 60% of which come from outside of Canada. Dr. Ken Mine (the Skeptic’s Guide to Emergency Medicine, theSGEM.com) and Dr. Anton Helman (EM Cases, emergencymedicinecases. com) have had similar success, regularly releasing podcasts that are downloaded between 5,000 and 10,000 times each. Some may argue that these resources do not possess the scholarly rigour to merit their notoriety, but they have grown to the point where they can no longer be ignored by the scholarly establishment. We believe that they are tapping into a niche that has been unfilled by journals by making it easier to consume and debate the literature. This trend toward convenience is likely attractive to busy clinicians trying to keep current with a constantly growing body of literature. We see social media and online resources as a complement to the static content of traditional medical journals. This growing synergy has been demonstrated by journals that have developed engaging online strategies. For example, The Journal of the American College of Radiology recently used Twitter “tweet chats” to increase online article views by >30% and Web page views by >25%. The Annals of Emergency Medicine and the EM blog, ALiEM.com, have organized online journal clubs that engage a diverse international population. A recent event had 1,401 readers and 313,229 Twitter audience impressions. With the rise of social media and online resources, academic journals are increasingly taking an active role in the translation of the research that they publish and have had varying levels of success. We believe that CJEM will benefit by embracing these evolving media and resources to become a leader in reader engagement.

Assessing interpersonal and communication skills in emergency medicine.

Introduction Online education resources (OERs), like blogs and podcasts, increasingly augment or replace traditional medical education resources such as textbooks and lectures. Trainees’ ability to evaluate these resources is poor, and few quality assessment aids have been developed to assist them. This study aimed to derive a quality evaluation instrument for this purpose. Methods We used a three-phase methodology. In Phase 1, a previously derived list of 151 OER quality indicators was reduced to 13 items using data from published consensus-building studies (of medical educators, expert podcasters, and expert bloggers) and subsequent evaluation by our team. In Phase 2, these 13 items were converted to seven-point Likert scales used by trainee raters (n=40) to evaluate 39 OERs. The reliability and usability of these 13 rating items was determined using responses from trainee raters, and top items were used to create two OER quality evaluation instruments. In Phase 3, these instruments were compared to an external certification process (the ALiEM AIR certification) and the gestalt evaluation of the same 39 blog posts by 20 faculty educators. Results Two quality-evaluation instruments were derived with fair inter-rater reliability: the METRIQ-8 Score (Inter class correlation coefficient [ICC]=0.30, p<0.001) and the METRIQ-5 Score (ICC=0.22, p<0.001). Both scores, when calculated using the derivation data, correlated with educator gestalt (Pearson’s r=0.35, p=0.03 and r=0.41, p<0.01, respectively) and were related to increased odds of receiving an ALiEM AIR certification (odds ratio=1.28, p=0.03; OR=1.5, p=0.004, respectively). Conclusion Two novel scoring instruments with adequate psychometric properties were derived to assist trainees in evaluating OER quality and correlated favourably with gestalt ratings of online educational resources by faculty educators. Further testing is needed to ensure these instruments are accurate when applied by trainees.

Creating, curating, and sharing online faculty development resources: The medical education in cases series experience

Interpersonal and communication skills (ICS) are a key component of several competency-based schemata and key competency in the set of six Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies. With the shift toward a competency-based educational framework, the importance of robust learner assessment becomes paramount. The journal Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM) hosted a consensus conference to discuss education research in emergency medicine (EM). This article summarizes the initial preparatory research that was conducted to brief consensus conference attendees and reports the results of the consensus conference breakout session as it pertains to ICS assessment of learners. The goals of this consensus conference session were to twofold: 1) to determine the state of assessment of observable learner performance and 2) to determine a research agenda within the ICS field for medical educators. The working group identified six key recommendations for medical educators and researchers.