Virtual Sections & Grade Report

From Todd Barnett- Standardized Patient Program, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Q: How to set up and display a box-plot (Grade Report) for both the individual section as well as Skill Areas.

We’ve just finished running a multi-station OSCE where each case checklist has multiple sections. I’d like to be able to give both the individual checklist sections’ scores and plots and the overall Physical Exam’s score and plot. Currently, I can only display each section.

Example:

Cerebellar Function, HEENT Exam, Mouth, Physical Exam (Px) 85% 77% 14% |--------|-------|

Heart (Px) 97% 85% 4% |--------|-------|

Thorax (Px) 92% 81% 18% |--------|-------|

-I’ve tried setting up virtual sections (weighting the virtual sections as 0 or the original checklist sections as 0 to not affect the weighting of the grades). The virtual sections don’t seem to be able to display on the plot at all.

-When I label everything with the same abbreviation, I only end up with the aggregate Px scores, and not any of the Section scores.

Thanks to anyone who can provide some guidance!

A: Virtual sections are indeed the best way for your reporting needs; however, the section scoring & weights need to be modified. (Thank you for your virtual section suggestion via listserve Rachel!)

Weights:

If you set the section weights to 0, WebSP will calculate the section weights with 0 which will result in an overall score of 0, hence the box plots will not appear.

Therefore, if you do not want the virtual aggregated section to affect case total, instead of giving the virtual aggregate section 0 weight, uncheck the "Affects case total" checkbox in Case Manager.

Virtual Section:

If you want an aggregate virtual section to be displayed as a box-plot in the Grade Report, simply leave the "Affects skill area (cross case section total)" checkbox checked in Case Manager. Also, consider giving your aggregate virtual section a different abbreviation ie. (Px Total). This way, the Px Total will be a new skill area, display a box-plot, and will not affecting the Px skill area.

Example:

Cerebellar Function, HEENT Exam, Mouth, Physical Exam (Px) 85% 77% 14% |--------|-------|

Heart (Px) 97% 85% 4% |--------|-------|

Thorax (Px) 92% 81% 18% |--------|-------|

VIRTUAL Aggregate Physical Exam (Px Total) 92% 81% 18% |--------|-------|

*Remember, when modifying any case that has data already entered, don't forget to clear score cache.

response written by Balazs Nagy (support@lionis.net)