Evaluation of a web-based interactive heart failure patient simulation: a pilot study

Background

There is a gap between the evidence and the management of patients with heart failure. To improve knowledge uptake, we have developed a web-based heart failure simulation that was designed to be fun, realistic, and interactive. We sought to determine whether clinicians will use the web-based simulation of patients with heart failure and whether it will improve their knowledge compared to the latest heart failure guidelines.

Methods

Internists were asked to manage 3 simulated patients with heart failure. We measured knowledge before and after the simulation, analyzed users' performance managing the cases, and assessed their satisfaction with the website.

Results

With 10 internists, there was no change in knowledge seen with 69% in before and after test scores. There was a trend to improvement in the performance scores in how users managed the cases with 77.3% in the first case, 81.5% in the second case (P = 0.21 compared to the first score), and 85.0% in the third case (P = 0.02 compared to the first score). The participants' satisfaction with the website was high.

Conclusions

In this pilot study, no change in short-term knowledge was seen with this web-based heart failure patient simulation. There was an improvement in management of simulated cases and user satisfaction was high.