Background:
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
(SARS-CoV-2) pandemic resulted in redeployment of non–critical
care–trained providers to intensive care units across the world.
Concurrently, traditional venues for delivery of medical education faced major
disruptions. The need for a virtual forum to fill knowledge gaps for healthcare
workers caring for patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was apparent in
the early stages of the pandemic.
Objective:
The weekly, open-access COVID-19 Critical Care Training
Forum (CCCTF) organized by the American Thoracic Society (ATS) provided a global
audience access to timely content relevant to their learning needs. The goals of
the forum were threefold: to aid healthcare providers in assessment and
treatment of patients with COVID-19, to reduce provider anxiety, and to
disseminate best practices.
Methods:
The first 13 ATS CCCTF sessions streamed live from April to
July 2020. Structured debriefs followed each session and participant feedback
was evaluated in planning of subsequent sessions. A second set of 14 sessions
streamed from August to November 2020. Content experts were recruited from
academic institutions across the United States.
Results:
As of July 2020, the ATS CCCTF had 2,494 live participants
and 7,687 downloads for a total of 10,181 views. The majority of participants
had both completed training (58.6%) and trained in critical care (53.8%).
Physicians made up a majority (82.2%) of the audience that spanned the globe
(61% were international attendees).
Conclusion:
We describe the rapid and successful implementation of
an open-access medical education forum to address training and knowledge gaps
among healthcare personnel caring for patients with COVID-19.