NCT02665767

Telementoring for Identifying the Appendix Using Telesonography

A Feasibility Study of Telementoring for Identifying the Appendix Using Smartphone-based Telesonography

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (actual)
• Sponsor: Hanyang University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 25 Years – 35 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The investigators investigated the feasibility of the clinical application of novice-practitioner-performed/offsite-mentor-guided ultrasonography for identifying the appendix.

Detailed description

A randomized cross-over study was conducted using a telesonography system that can transmit the ultrasound images displayed on the ultrasound monitor(ultrasound sequence video) and images showing the practitioner's operations(background video) to a smartphone without any interruption in motion over a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. Thirty novice practitioners were randomly assigned to two groups. The subjects in group A (n=15) performed ultrasonography for the identification of the appendix under mentoring by an onsite expert, whereas those in group B (n=15) performed the same procedure under mentoring by an offsite expert. Each subject performed the procedure on three simulated patients. After a four-week interval, they performed the procedure again under the other type of mentoring. A total of 90 ultrasound examinations were performed in each scenario. The primary outcomes were the success rate for identifying the appendix and the time required to identify the appendix.

Conditions

• Appendix, Ultrasonography

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Smartphone-based Telesonography	The 30 participating examiners were randomly divided into two groups. In phase one, group A performed ultrasonography under onsite mentoring and group B performed the same procedure under remote mentoring. Each examiner was randomly assigned one expert and three SPs for phase one. Four weeks later, they were partnered with the same expert and SPs to whom they had been assigned in phase one and performed the procedure under the other type of mentoring (phase two). The examination order of the SPs was randomly assigned by choosing a number between one and six (1: A-B-C, 2: A-C-B, 3: B-A-C, 4: B-C-A, 5: C-A-B, 6: C-B-A) in each phase.

Timeline

• Start date: 2015-03-01
• Primary completion: 2015-09-01
• Completion: 2015-10-01
• First posted: 2016-01-28
• Last updated: 2016-01-28

Locations

1 site across 1 country: South Korea