Design and Development of a Pilot on Line Electronic OSCE Station for Use in Medical Education

The aim of this work is to present the technical issues around the design and implementation of an OSCE station (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) in electronic format, so as to be used in the fields of medical education. The presented e-OSCE examination - through the interactive web pages developed - is aimed to be used to assess applied knowledge, clinical reasoning and professional attitudes in the context of a basic clinical skill: intravenous cannulation. Candidates are rated on their medical knowledge of the physical and psychological issues involved in the questions. They are also rated on their ability to manage the issues raised in this case and perform the procedure appropriately and competently with regard for the patient safety and comfort. Two programs, complementary to each other were used for the design of the electronic OSCE; VUE, for the design of the logical path, and OpenLabyrinth, as an activity modeling system. They allowed the schematization and the creation of the on line interactive educational activity. OpenLabyrinth had to be installed in the local server and be configured. Moreover, the application is compatible with the latest technological standards proposed by MedBiquitous, which allows the interoperability, accessibility and reusability of the educational content.