Development of an Interactive Application for Learning Medical Procedures and Clinical Decision Making

This paper outlines the development of a Virtual Patient style tablet application for the purpose of teaching decision making to undergraduate students of medicine. In order to objectively compare some of the various technologies available, the application was written using two different languages: one as a native iPad app written in Objective-C, the other as a web-based app written in HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The requirements for both applications were identical, and this paper will discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of both technologies from both a HCI point of view and from a technological point of view. Application deployment, user-computer interaction, usability, security, and cross-platform interoperability are also discussed. The motivation for developing this application, entitled Casebook, was to create a platform to test the novel approach of using real patient records to teach undergraduate students. These medical records form patient cases, and these cases are navigated using the Casebook application with the goal of teaching decision making and clinical reasoning; the pretext being that real cases more closely match the context of the hospital ward and thereby increase authentic activity. Of course, patient cases must possess a certain level of quality to be useful. Therefore, the quality of documentation and, most importantly, quality's impact on healthcare is also discussed.