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Authors | Institution |
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Katharine de Boer Michael Cunningham |
AO Foundation. AOSpine Europe. Stettbachstrasse 6, 8600 Duebendorf. Switzerland. kdeboer@aospine.org |
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| Are webinars an effective educational tool to improve spinal patient care? |
Face-to-face learning is becoming less accessible for spine care specialists due to cost, time, and geographic location, therefore, live webinars were delivered in an attempt to make education more available. This study evaluated if this educational format is effective in improving surgeon performance and patient care.
Between 2011 and 2012 five webinars were delivered on topics aligned to an overall curriculum in spinal pathologies. After each webinar participants received an eight-question online evaluation asking how relevant was the content presented in the webinar to their daily practice and, how likely is it that they would make one or more changes in their clinical practice as a result of participating in this educational event. Participant demographics were also recorded as well as their overall satisfaction with the experience.
403 practicing surgeons and surgical trainees attended the five webinars and a total of 212 participants completed the postwebinar evaluation. 81% reported the webinar content to be either 'quite' or 'highly' relevant, 72% of the respondents reported they were 'likely', 'somewhat more likely' or 'very likely' to make one or more changes in their clinical practice as a result of participating in the educational event.
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The results show a high percentage of self-reported intention to change in all of the webinars. Combined with high satisfaction and participation rates, this data suggests that surgeon behavior and performance can be changed using this educational format. Future work could add methods to measure if participants made their intended changes in their practice.
"From my point of view it is a very good education system"
"These kinds of events are very nice and I like much this form of study"
"It was an outstanding experience for me as well"
"I was surprised that we could convince more than half of the participants to change or to seriously consider changing their practice"
Live and archived webinars are a valuable educational format to include in the overall portfolio for delivering a curriculum.
Participation in a webinar can cause intention to change practice in qualified and trainee surgeons.
AOSpine Europe Board Members
AOSpine Europe, Middle East and Africa Project Management Team
Rudolf Elmer, AO Education Institute
AOSpine Europe. New educational initiative 'webinars' embraced by members (Internet). Duebendorf (CH): AOSpine; 2012. Available at: https://aospine.org
AOSpine International. The AOSpine Curriculum (Internet). Duebendorf (CH): AOSpine; 2012. Available at: https://aospine.org
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