Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physicians’ Use of Point‐of‐care Ultrasound and Barriers to Implementation: A Regional Pilot Study

ObjectivesPoint‐of‐care ultrasound (POCUS) has been identified as a critical skill for pediatric emergency medicine (PEM) physicians. The purpose of this study was to profile the current status of PEM POCUS in pediatric emergency departments (EDs).MethodsAn electronic survey was distributed to PEM fellows and attending physicians at four major pediatric academic health centers. The 24‐item questionnaire covered professional demographics, POCUS experience and proficiency, and barriers to the use of POCUS in pediatric EDs. We used descriptive and inferential statistics to profile respondent’s PEM POCUS experience and proficiency and Rasch analysis to evaluate barriers to implementation.ResultsOur return rate was 92.8% (128/138). Respondents were attending physicians (68%) and fellows (28%). Most completed pediatric residencies prior to PEM fellowship (83.6%). Almost all had some form of ultrasound education (113/128, 88.3%). Approximately half (46.9%) completed a formal ultrasound curriculum. More than half (53.2%) said their ultrasound education was pediatric‐specific. Most participants (67%) rated their POCUS proficiency low (Levels 1–2), while rating proficiency in other professional competencies (procedures 52%, emergency stabilization 70%) high (Levels 4–5). There were statistically significant differences in POCUS proficiency between those with formal versus informal ultrasound education (p < 0.001) and those from pediatric versus emergency medicine residencies (p < 0.05). Participants identified both personal barriers discomfort with POCUS skills (76.7%), insufficient educational time to learn POCUS (65%), and negative impact of POCUS on efficiency (58.5%)—and institutional barriers to the use of ultrasound‐consultants will not use ultrasound findings from the ED (60%); insufficient mentoring (64.7%), and POCUS not being a departmental priority (57%).ConclusionsWhile POCUS utilization continues to grow in PEM, significant barriers to full implementation still persist. One significant barrier relates to the need for dedicated time to learn and practice POCUS to achieve sufficient levels of proficiency for use in practice.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138938/1/aet210049_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138938/2/aet210049-sup-0001-SupInfo.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138938/3/aet210049.pd

Keeping Up With the Kids: Diffusion of Innovation in Pediatric Emergency Medicine Among Emergency Physicians

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137273/1/acem13185.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137273/2/acem13185_am.pd

Using Twitter to increase content dissemination and control educational content with Presenter Initiated and Generated Live Educational Tweets (PIGLETs)

<p>Live-tweeting during educational presentations is typically learner-generated and can lead to misquoted information. Presenter curated tweets have not been well described. We created Presenter Initiated and Generated Live Educational Tweets (PIGLETs) with the goal to broaden the reach of educational conferences. We hypothesized that using PIGLETs would increase the reach and exposure of our material. We developed a prospective single-arm intervention study performed during the “Not Another Boring Lecture” workshops presented at two national conferences in 2015. Presenters tweeted PIGLETs linked to unique hashtags #NotAnotherBoringLecture and #InnovateMedEd. Analytic software was used to measure the following outcomes: (1) number of tweets published by presenters versus learners, (2) reach (users exposed to content containing the hashtag), and (3) exposure (total number of times content was delivered). One hundred and twenty-six participants attended the workshops. A total of 636 tweets (including retweets) were sent by presenters containing the study hashtags, compared with 162 sent by learners. #NotAnotherBoringLecture reached 47,200 users and generated 136,400 impressions; #InnovateMedEd reached 36,400 users and generated 79,100 impressions. PIGLETs allowed presenters to reach a significant number of learners, as well as control the content delivered through Twitter. PIGLETs can be used to augment educational sessions beyond the physical confines of the classroom.</p