Evaluation of Internal Medicine Point-of-Care Ultrasound Curricula in Canada Through a Quality Improvement Framework Using Education Indicators.
other · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42642707.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1007/s11606-026-10715-w.
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Abstract
Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is increasingly integrated into residency training; however, POCUS education within Canadian internal medicine (IM) residency programs is not standardized. To support curriculum development and evaluation, the Canadian internal medicine ultrasound (CIMUS) group has previously published consensus-based education indicators (EIs). This study seeks to refine operational working definitions for the published EIs and characterize POCUS education in Canadian IM residency programs. Eleven POCUS experts developed consensus-based working definitions for the previously published EIs. The refined EIs were then used to collect data to evaluate existing POCUS curricula in Canadian IM training programs. The previously 22 published EIs were refined to 17 through expert consensus, with two forms being created to account for programs with POCUS electives. All Canadian IM training programs (n = 17) completed data collection. Significant heterogeneity was noted. Programs have a median of one POCUS faculty (range 0-5), with median annual teaching time of 18 h (ranging from 0 to 204 h). Only one program has assessment processes in place for all POCUS learners. Ten programs (59%) have no POCUS archiving system or feedback mechanism available for independent scans. Only six programs (35%) have program evaluation in place. Seven (41%) have support for equipment or faculty time. Six programs (35%) had a "superuser" augmented POCUS stream, providing a median of 161 additional teaching hours. Within these programs, one-third (n = 2) provide feedback on all learner-acquired images, one-third (n = 2) have no mechanism for feedback on images, while the remaining third (n = 2) give feedback on a subset of studies. Using an EI-based instrument to capture Canadian IM medicine POCUS curricula implementation efforts revealed significant heterogeneity across all indicators. Use of this instrument may be helpful in supporting the standardization of high-quality POCUS education.