V4-06: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WEB-BASED VIDEO PLATFORM FOR TEACHING THE ROBOTIC SIMPLE PROSTATECTOMY
Video
INTRODUCTION
The vast majority of resident surgical teaching in the United Sates is performed in the operating room. Instructional feedback on technique is nearly exclusively given at the time of surgery. However, this current model poses problems in the modern era due to pressures for increased surgical throughput and resident duty hour restrictions. We have developed a web-based, interactive platform that uses novel video technology (compatible with most media devices) to enhance surgical teaching. We have taken the first step in implementing the training platform by assessing the platform’s usability to teach the robotic simple prostatectomy and to ensure trainee participation using a validated, industry standard questionnaire.
METHODS
All urology surgical trainees at our institution were given access to a web-based surgical training platform. This platform allows trainees to easily upload video segments of surgeries they performed for expert (attending physician) review. The experts are alerted through email and are prompted to give text based comments as feedback. The feedback is embedded within the video and is time congruent to the task being performed. The trainees are alerted to the reviewer’s comments and are prompted to review the video containing expert feedback. To evaluate the platform as a teaching tool, the trainees were given access to the platform, asked to watch the steps of a robotic simple prostatectomy, leave comments, and then complete the System Usability Survey (SUS). This is a 10 question, survey to assess the perceived usability of web-based products. The SUS is an industry standard and has been proven and validated by a large database of web-based platforms to effectively differentiate usable and unusable products.
RESULTS
Out of the 21 trainees at our institution, all accessed the website during the study period. A total of 17/21 (81%) used the platform and completed the SUS. The average SUS score was 85 for our platform, which correlates to a usability in the top 10% of technology based systems. The SUS score of 85 also correlates with continued usage and increased likelihood that users would recommend the platform to other trainees.
CONCLUSION
Our web-based surgical training platform has shown very favorable usability, which makes it likely to be utilized by residents as a teaching tool. The platform is well equipped for teaching robotic simple prostatectomy or other relatively low volume surgical procedures. Future studies are aimed at tracking and quantifying resident platform utilization and correlating this to resident surgical skill progression.
Funding: none