Interactive Telehealth Video Visits: A New Age for OSCEs

Healthcare in New Mexico is changing with the authorization of insurance reimbursement for telehealth. In order to prepare graduates to provide this care the College of Nursing has added video visit simulations to our Objective Structured Clinical Evaluation (OSCE) program. OSCEs have been extensively used in health science undergraduate and graduate programs across the country, demonstrating a high correlation with actual clinical skills and are crucial in the preparation of competent providers. Scarcity of suitable clinical sites, the high cost of faculty-led site visits, and the variability of clinical experiences create barriers for equitable evaluation of clinical performance. These challenges have prompted innovative clinical evaluations of students in remote sites. A standardized evaluation tool was developed to facilitate consistent assessment. The Focused Assessment of Clinically Targeted Skills (FACTS) checklist provides standardization of evaluation and feedback. The FACTS evaluation tool has been used for direct clinical observation and all OSCE experiences leveling the playing field for consistent student evaluation. This presentation will outline the planning, coordination, implementation, and standardized student evaluation used during video visit OSCEs at the University of New Mexico, College of Nursing