PTNow Hear This: Promoting Evidence-Based Practice to Augment Clinical Reasoning
Purpose
Trying to facilitate student clinical reasoning and use of best evidence during clinical education? Looking for an evidence-based resource that can quickly assist students in the clinic? PTNow is APTA’s evidence-based practice (EBP) web resource that promotes using best evidence to optimize patient outcomes. The purpose of this session is to provide the attendee with a working knowledge of PTNow and methods to incorporate the tools provided in PTNow into both physical therapy academic and clinical educational settings.
Methods and/or Description of Project
This presentation will describe:
1. How to access and utilize tools within PTNow that can assist students, academic, and clinical faculty in making patient care decisions based on evidence.
2. Technological, pedagogical, and clinical benefits and challenges to using a technology-based EBP tool in real-time clinical teaching situations.
3. PTNow usage data and results from student and clinical instructor efforts to utilize the electronic resource.
4. Pedagogical cases of models employed in several physical therapy educational programs to utilize the range of EBP resources within PTNow (from ArticleSearch to curated and knowledge translation tools)
5. Teaching strategies used to facilitate the use PTNow by both millennial and non-millennial physical therapy students and clinical instructors.
Results/Outcomes
In 2016, students comprised 42% of all members accessing PTNow (Practice Department, APTA, personal communication). It has been used by both academic and clinical faculty to facilitate student clinical reasoning by its incorporation into EBP and practice management courses. Polling at the 2016 National Student Conclave found that a majority of those students were familiar with PTNow, often being provided an overview of the site or using it in a particular course or content area. Some of the learning activities that faculty have used include database searching, learning patient-client management for conditions via clinical summaries and cases, and identifying best practices from clinical practice guidelines and appropriate tests & measures for a particular patient population. In 2016, the top 5 web pages accessed by APTA’s student members (monthly average) were: ArticleSearch (n=655), PTNow home page (n=481), Rehabilitation Reference Center, provided by EBSCO Host (n=308), database search results (n=290), and Clinical Summaries (n=276). Although, curated CPGs (n=110) and Test and Measure Summaries (n=91) were less utilized.
Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme: Through the Looking Glass: Transforming Physical Therapy Education
Though unfortunately most students do not access the depth and variety of synthesized EBP resources that are available on PTNow, it is frequently used by physical therapy educational programs to teach clinical reasoning and EBP skills. This training is initiated within the classroom by academic faculty and transferred to the clinical environment during clinical internships by clinical instructors. This requires elaborate constructivist integration of many skills, such as clinical performance tasks, clinical reasoning, cognitive flexibility, and computer literacy).
The data and pedagogical examples presented in this session can be utilized by physical therapy educational programs to influence ongoing efforts to integrate EBP into their academic and clinical curricula.
References
1. Christensen N, Black L, Furze J. Clinical reasoning: survey of teaching methods, integration, and assessment in entry-level physical therapist academic education. Phys Ther, 2017;97(2):175-186.
2. Gagnon K, Sabus C, Robertson E, Derrick MK. Social media and mobile technology use among physical therapist students: a multisite descriptive study. J Phys Ther Ed, 2016;30(2):14-22.
3. Hawk J, Reicherter EA, Gordes K. SECTIONS Model: strategizing technology-based instruction in physical therapy education. J Phys Ther Educ, 2014;28(1):73-79.
4. Mickan S, Tilson JK, Atherton H, Roberts NW, Heneghan C. Evidence of effectiveness of health care professionals using handheld computers: a scoping review of systematic reviews. J Med Internet Res, 2013;15(10):e212.
5. Munoz ML, Hoffman LM, Brimo D. Be smarter than your phone: a framework for using apps in clinical practice. Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders, 2013;40:138-150.
6. Ohtake PF, Smith J, Lee A, Coffey J. Clinical practice guidelines: implementation in acute care practice. J Acute Care Phys Ther, 2014;5(2):59-69.
7. PTNow: Tools for Advancing Physical Therapist Practice. American Physical Therapy Association; 2016. Available at http://www.ptnow.org.
8. Sayedalamin Z, Alshuaibi A, Almutairi O, et al. Utilization of smart phones related medical applications among medical students at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah: a cross-sectional study. J Infection Public Health, 2016;9(6):691-697.
9. Task Force (Chairs: Levine D, Tilson J.). Doctor of Physical Therapy Education Evidence-Based Practice Curriculum Guidelines, Evidence-Based Practice Special Interest Group, Section on Research, American Physical Therapy Association;2014. Accessed from http://www.ptresearch.org/site/1/SIGS/EBP/EBP%20PT%20ED%20MANUAL%20FINAL%202-24-15.pdf on April 10, 2017.
Course Objectives
By the end of this educational session, the participant will be able to:
1. Access tools within PTNow that can assist students, academic, and clinical faculty in making patient care decisions based on evidence.
2. Discuss technological, pedagogical, and clinical benefits and challenges of using a technology-based EBP tool in real-time clinical teaching situations.
3. Teaching strategies used to facilitate the use PTNow by both millennial and non-millennial physical therapy students and clinical instructors.
4. Strategize for implemention of PTNow in your own physical therapist and physical therapist assistant didactic and clinical educational programs.
Instructional Methods
1. Demonstration of PTNow with attendees navigating along on personal electronic device
2. Lecture
3. Case examples
4. Pedagogy planning worksheet (guided in small groups)
5. Q&A discussion
Tentative Outline/Schedule
I. Introduction to PTNow (with site navigation)--20 min.
II. 2016 PTNow Usage--10 min.
III. Millenial and Adult Learning Integrated with Technology--5 min.
IV. Pedagogical Examples--30 min.
A. University 1 (Intro to EBP, Cardiopulmonary, and Clinical Education)
B. University 2 (Musculoskeletal, Outcome Measures and CPGs)
V. Strategizing Implementation in Own Educational Program (worksheet)--15 min.
VI. Questions, Answers, Discussion--10 min.