Nursing Student Remote Performance Assessment Using a Novel Smartphone Application

Smartphone technologies have transformed the way people interact with each other around the world. The technology offers new approaches and opportunities for collecting, storing and sharing information. A novel smartphone technology application (app) originally developed for Patient Behavior Health applications was tested to determine if the proficiency of nursing students demonstrating a standardized seasonal influenza immunization protocol could be accurately recorded and subsequently evaluated remotely. The student performance was rated by four university instructors independently of each other. Each instructor used a standardized competency check-list to score these students. The study showed that by using the new smart-phone application, the remote evaluation of clinical nursing student proficiencies could be accomplished quickly and easily. However, the inter-rater agreement indicated that training of the evaluators in the use of the new app prior to scoring student performances will be needed. Whil...