title: Assessing a nephrology-focused YouTube channel's potential to educate health care providers.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  YouTube has emerged as a potential teaching tool. Studies of the teaching potential of YouTube videos have not addressed health care provider (HCP) satisfaction; a necessary prerequisite for any teaching tool. We conducted a 4-month investigation to determine HCP satisfaction with a nephrology-specific YouTube channel.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Nephrology On-Demand YouTube channel was analyzed from January 1 through April 30, 2011. Sixty-minute nephrology lectures at East Carolina University were compressed into 10-minute videos and uploaded to the channel. HCPs were asked to answer a 5-point Likert questionnaire regarding the accuracy, currency, objectivity and usefulness of the digital format of the teaching videos. Means, standard deviations and 2-sided chi-square testing were performed to analyze responses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Over 80% of HCPs considered the YouTube channel to be accurate, current and objective. A similar percentage considered the digital format useful despite the compression of videos and lack of audio.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The nephrology-specific YouTube channel has the potential to educate HCPs of various training backgrounds. Additional studies are required to determine if such specialty-specific channels can improve knowledge acquisition and retention.
authors.affiliation: Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27834, USA. desait@ecu.edu
authors.forename: Tejas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Desai
authors.forename: Vivek
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sanghani
authors.forename: Xiangming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Cynthia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Christiano
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferris
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D020375:Education, Distance / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D009398:Nephrology / Q000193:education*; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D061108:Social Media / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014741:Video Recording