Presentation delivered by James Ellison, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medical Education & Psychiatry, The University of Nottingham at the MyKnowledgeMap summer conference 2015 'Placement Assessment in Challenging Environments - The Journey for Medicine & Dentistry'

1. A Paperless Pilot:
A Perspective from Nottingham
Dr James Ellison
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medical Education &
General Adult Psychiatry

2. Outline
• The Nottingham Course
• Current WPBA system
• Drivers
• Barriers & Hurdles
• Why a pilot?
• The Plan
• Issues & Challenges

3. The Nottingham Medical Course
Clinical Phase 3 (CP3) -Advanced Clinical Experience (Medicine, Surgery,
Musculoskeletal Disorders and Disability, Primary Care, Critical Illness)
Clinical Phase 2 (CP2) - Child Health, O&G, Psychiatry, Health Care of the
Elderly, Dermatology, Ophthalmology, ENT, Special Study Module
Clinical Phase 1 (CP1) - Medicine & Surgery, CFU, Infection, Therapeutics
BMedSci Research Project
A100 Years 1 & 2
Basic Medical Sciences
Clinical Professional Development
A101 First 18 months
PBL course
Clinical Professional Development

4. MACCS
• Mandatory Assessment of Core Clinical Skills
• Nottingham’s WPBA
• Introduced 2007/8
• System developed organically
• Complicated
• Resource-heavy

7. Logbooks
• Across all years annual cost >£30,000
• ACE/CP3 logbook - most costly
• Revised/reprinted annually
• £3736.09 for 420 copies = £8.90 each

8. Current MACCS Process
Meeting with students with
MACCS outstanding
Student registered completed
MACCS via moodle
Assessor completes checklist
& signs MACCS form
Student completes task
Assessor form completed
(once only)
Student identifies assessor
Students with MACCS issues
contacted
10% sample of logbooks
checked
At end of phase database
checked for blanks
Informal monitoring of
MACCS database by staff

9. Drivers
• Administrative burden
• Printing costs
• Environmental costs
• Archiving issues
• Proving competence down the line
• National Student Survey

10. Barriers & Hurdles
• Inertia
• Expense
• Tech-averse staff
• Staff anxieties
• University IT support
• University policy/initiatives

11. Why a pilot?
• Justification to University
• Cost
• Strategic considerations
• Proof of concept

12. The Plan
• 20 CP3 students to take part
• Half to be loaned a tablet PC
• Half to use their own device
• Carry logbook as a ‘safety net’
• Regular focus groups
• Feedback from assessors

13. Recruitment
• Email sent to all potential CP3 students
• £50 voucher incentive
• 49 volunteers out of 421 students
• 7 rejected due to early commencement of CP3
• Students selected semi-purposively

14. Work So Far
• Dedicated time from IT Officer
• Upload of existing MACCS to MyProgress
• Checking & correcting
• Informal field-testing
• Development of assessor feedback questions

15. Issues & Challenges
• Provided device vs BYOD
• Tablet devices - to lock or not?
• (?Mythical) Machiavellian students
• Culture change
• Reducing students’ reliance on paper
• Supporting the tech-averse

16. Thank you
Any questions?
james.ellison@nottingham.ac.uk