Competency-Based Graduate Nursing Education for Fundoscopic and Otoscopic Exam Using Telehealth.

Abstract

Abstract: Mastery of physical assessment skills is critical for assessing and diagnosing patients and is an important learning objective for graduate nursing programs. Standard equipment makes assessment of these skills difficult. A quasi-experimental pre/post single cohort design was used for this project. A telehealth cart adapted with an otoscope and a PanOptic™ ophthalmoscope with a smartphone facilitated the acquisition of kinesthetic skill to perform an otoscopic and fundoscopic exam. Using Benner's novice-to-expert theory stages of competence, the combined values of perceived competent and proficient levels improved from 22 to 40 percent pre-instruction to 70 to 87 percent post-instruction for both techniques.