Teaching physical assessment with a digital patient

Finding effective and engaging ways to teach advanced assessment and clinical reasoning skills are a challenge for faculty who instruct students of varied levels of clinical experience and specialization.  Through the use of a Digital Clinical Experience^TM, Shadow Health^TM, students had the opportunity to practice both physical assessment skills and develop clinical reasoning skills with a digital standardized patient. Shadow Health^TM is a series of interactive, 3D experiences that simulate a patient interaction and provides the opportunity for the student to interview, examine and diagnose a digital patient and receive instant feedback.  These interactive experiences were divided into modules based on components of the head to toe exam.  After conducting exams on the digital standardized patient, students were asked to reflect on skills used to complete an exam, their clinical reasoning for chosen skills, and what they learned from each module.  Faculty were able to offer meaningful individualized feedback to each student because they had access to students’ reflections and interactions with the digital standardized patient through transcripts that were generated with every question asked in the history portion of the exam and every physical exam skill used.  Faculty also received a summary that included how the class performed in their assessment of red flag items, which critical items were most and least explored and suggestions for content that needs to be repeated or emphasized.  These summaries were beneficial for faculty to tailor weekly teaching based on current student needs.  Students evaluated this learning experience after the course was completed. Shadow health provided a unique and valuable opportunity for faculty to know about the learning needs of individual students and the class throughout the semester. The purpose of this presentation is to describe the faculty and student experience with a digital standardized patient.