507 - National Neonatology Curriculum: If You Build It, Will They Come?

Publication Number: 507.5607

Rita Dadiz, Golisano Children's Hospital at The University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States; Megan Gray, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, United States; Susan Izatt, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, United States; Maria Gillam-Krakauer, van, Nashville, TN, United States; Melissa M.. Carbajal, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, United States; Lindsay Johnston, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, United States; Allison H. Payne, UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, Cleveland, OH, United States; Margarita Vasquez, The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine, San Antonio, TX, United States; Elizabeth Bonachea, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH, United States; Heidi E. Karpen, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, United States; ALISON FALCK, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, Carmel, CA, United States; Patricia Chess, Golisano Children's Hospital at The University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, United States; Heather M. French, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Background: Medical faculty educators are challenged by increased clinical demands and limited academic time to develop educational materials and teach. These challenges are accentuated in institutions with a small faculty size and training program. To help support neonatology educators, the Organization of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine Training Program Directors (ONTPD) developed the National Neonatology Curriculum (NNC) as a free, online, peer-reviewed program available to educators and fellows. Usage patterns of the NNC online educational materials may inform other training programs interested in creating similar curricula.

Objective: To describe the user characteristics and utilization patterns of the ONTPD NNC during 2018-23.

Design/Methods: The ONTPD structured the NNC for flipped classroom education as modules with physiology videos, knowledge questions, and flipped classroom facilitator and learner guides. Educational content was mapped to the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) subspecialty content specifications. The ONTPD has continued to publish new modules to an online educational website since 2018. Utilizing descriptive statistics, we analyzed module access data over 6 years (2018-23). Data included user demographics, module views, and module access over time.

Results: In 2018-23, ONTPD published 57 modules covering 7 sections of the ABP content specifications (Table 1). Each module received a median of 35.7 (IQR 24, 50) unique views each quarter, with the top 3 modules receiving 88.4 (modes of ventilation), 113.9 (fetal assessment), and 115.6 (neonatal resuscitation) views per quarter. Views remained steady or increased over time (Figure). Users accessed the NNC the most in 2020-22 during the COVID pandemic and the ONTPD educational trial evaluating the NNC’s efficacy for knowledge acquisition and retention (PMID 35660790). Respiratory modules, which represent the largest section of the ABP content specifications, were viewed the most (Table 1). While about half of users were physicians and/or practiced in the field of neonatology, the other half of users were non-physician professionals and/or from other fields of practice (Table 2).

Conclusion(s): In addition to neonatology providers for whom the ONTPD NNC was created, the online curriculum demonstrated high usage by individuals from different professions and fields of practice. Training programs from other specialties may consider partnering with their national specialty organizations to develop similar peer-reviewed educational resources as shared curricula that have the potential for wider use.

Table 1. User Access of Educational Modules


Figure. User views of National Neonatology Curriculum modules during 6-year period
Colored lines represent individual modules with different topic sections (respiratory, blue; maternal-fetal-medicine, pink; gastroenterology and bilirubin, green; extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, orange; cardiovascular, red; education, purple; biostatistics, yellow).

Table 2. Cross-Sectional Demographics of Unique Viewers during One Quarter


Table 1. User Access of Educational Modules


Figure. User views of National Neonatology Curriculum modules during 6-year period
Colored lines represent individual modules with different topic sections (respiratory, blue; maternal-fetal-medicine, pink; gastroenterology and bilirubin, green; extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, orange; cardiovascular, red; education, purple; biostatistics, yellow).

Table 2. Cross-Sectional Demographics of Unique Viewers during One Quarter