A Mobile Medical Knowledge Dissemination Platform (HeadToToe): Mixed Methods Study

Abstract

Background Finding readily accessible, high-quality medical references can be a challenging task. HeadToToe is a mobile platform designed to allow easy and quick access to sound, up-to-date, and validated medical knowledge and guidance. It provides easy access to essential clinical medical content in the form of documents, videos, clinical scores, and other formats for the day-to-day access and use by medical students and physicians during their pre- and postgraduate education. Objective The aim of this paper is to describe the architecture, user interface, and potential strengths and limitations of an innovative knowledge dissemination platform developed at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. We also report preliminary results from a user-experience survey and usage statistics over a selected period. Methods The dissemination platform consists of a smartphone app. Through an administration interface, content is managed by senior university and hospital staff. The app includes the following sections: (1) main section of medical guidance, organized by clinical field; (2) checklists for history-taking and clinical examination, organized by body systems; (3) laboratory section with frequently used lab values; and (4) favorites section. Each content item is programmed to be available for a given duration as defined by the content’s author. Automatic notifications signal the author when the content is about to expire, hence, promoting its timely updating and reducing the risk of using obsolete content. In the background, a third-party statistical collecting tool records anonymous utilization statistics. Results We launched the final version of the platform in March 2019, both at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Geneva and at the University Hospital of Geneva in Switzerland. A total of 622 students at the university and 613 health professionals at the hospital downloaded the app. Two-thirds of users at both institutions had an iOS device. During the practical examination period (ie, May 2019) there was a significant increase in the number of active users (P=.003), user activity (P<.001), and daily usage time (P<.001) among medical students. In addition, there were 1086 clinical skills video views during this period compared to a total of 484 in the preceding months (ie, a 108% increase). On a 10-point Likert scale, students and physicians rated the app with mean scores of 8.2 (SD 1.9) for user experience, 8.1 (SD 2.0) for usefulness, and 8.5 (SD 1.8) for relevance of content. In parallel, postgraduate trainees viewed more than 6000 documents during the first 3 months after the implementation in the Division of Neurology at our institution. Conclusions HeadToToe is an educator-driven, mobile dissemination platform, which provides rapid and user-friendly access to up-to-date medical content and guidance. The platform was given high ratings for user experience, usefulness, and content quality and was used more often during the exam period. This suggests that the platform could be used as tool for exam preparation.

Using mHealth to Increase the Reach of Local Guidance to Health Professionals as Part of an Institutional Response Plan to the COVID-19 Outbreak: Usage Analysis Study

“…The role of our mHealth platform has been previously described for students’ clinical training and exam preparation as well as for medical residents’ training [ 16 ]. In a recent quantitative and qualitative analysis involving HCWs of the Children’s Hospital in HUG completed at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic in Switzerland, the platform appeared to be of value and it was rapidly implemented and seen as time-effective and informative [ 12 ].…”

“…Our team developed a mobile smartphone platform called HeadToToe to help medical staff easily access locally validated and endorsed medical content [ 16 , 17 ]. It provides an institutional knowledge dissemination solution and has been organized by medical specialty to offer internationally and locally validated and up-to-date medical guidance in the form of documents, videos, and clinical scores, previously selected and validated by senior physicians.…”

“…In addition, automatic and anonymous real-time statistics are collected with Yahoo Flurry [ 18 ], which provides data concerning user activity and content viewing patterns. A detailed description of the instrument’s development process and features is described in previous publications [ 16 , 17 ]. The platform is available on iOS and Android and both versions provide the same features and user experience to HCWs.…”

A Mobile Health Platform to Disseminate Validated Institutional Measurements During the COVID-19 Outbreak: Utilization-Focused Evaluation Study

“…Owing to our medical students' and residents' need to easily access locally endorsed and validated medical knowledge, we have developed a mobile platform called "HeadToToe" [11,12]. The platform provides an institutional knowledge dissemination solution and consists of iOS and Android mobile apps where medical students and health professionals can access medical content organized by medical specialties, such as local and international guidance, clinical skills videos, and administrative material.…”

Mobile knowledge dissemination for clinical competencies education

“…We have developed a mobile platform for the dissemination of medical knowledge for pre‐ and postgraduate learners based on the humanistic expertise (Dreyfus model) 1 . The platform provides access to information concerning clinical skills, treatment plans and more.…”