With the growth of 3D printing within hospitals there is an increasing need for education of staff within these hospital systems. Leading this innovation in training is the Veteran’s Affairs Health Care System (VHA) Office of Advance Manufacturing (OAM). To aid in education of staff, OAM created an “3D Printing in the VA Health Care System: Building the Hospital of the Future” learning module to increase clinical core competency in the field of 3D printing. Launched September 2021 the course was available to physicians, dentists, pharmacists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, nursing staff, and engineering staff. This online training option is the first of it kind to be available nationwide within a health care system. We sought to examine VHA staff attitudes towards this novel training module as it applies to 3D printing.
A one-hour course was made available for all VHA staff as part of VHA’s learning management system. Continuing medical, dental, nursing, pharmacy and therapy credits were available to learners. Post module knowledge assessment was required for completion. Questions were categorized based on content domain including Engineering Domain (ED) and Clinical Domain (CD). A post module survey was obtained for staff after completion of learning modules. Participants were queried regarding the quality and utility of the module as well as the applications of 3D printing in health care. Program data was obtained from September 2021 to August 2022. Students t-test* and Fisher’s Exact test** were utilized continuous and categorical data respectively.
99 health care staff participated in the learning modules. Most common occupations included dental 17%, 14% engineering, 14% nursing, 8.1% occupational therapy, 5.1% physicians. Only 3% of participants were surgeons. When analyzed by occupation there was no statistical difference on the number of attempts made to achieve a passing score of 85% on the post module quiz (p=0.5**).
Learning Objectives:
- Upon completion, participants will be able to appreciate a new training module for healthcare staff at the point of care
- Upon completion, participants will be able to describe the administrative steps required when creating an accredited training module for healthcare staff
- Upon completion, participants will be able to identify key educational components of a training module in efforts to increase stakeholders with limited exposure to 3D printing technology
