title: OMARC: An online multimedia application for training health care providers in the assessment of respiratory conditions.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  OMARC, a multimedia application designed to support the training of health care providers for the identification of common lung sounds heard in a patient's thorax as part of a health assessment, is described and its positive contribution to user learning is assessed. The main goal of OMARC is to effectively help health-care students become familiar with lung sounds as part of the assessment of respiratory conditions. In addition, the application must be easy to use and accessible to students and practitioners over the internet.
  
  
  METHODS
  OMARC was developed using an online platform to facilitate access to users in remote locations. OMARC's unique contribution as an educational software tool is that it presents a narrative about normal and abnormal lung sounds using interactive multimedia and sample case studies designed by professional health-care providers and educators. Its interface consists of two distinct components: a sounds glossary and a rich multimedia interface which presents clinical case studies and provides access to lung sounds placed on a model of a human torso. OMARC's contents can be extended through the addition of sounds and case studies designed by health-care educators and professionals.
  To validate OMARC and determine its efficacy in improving learning and capture user perceptions about it, we performed a pilot study with ten nursing students. Participants' performance was measured through an evaluation of their ability to identify several normal and adventitious/abnormal sounds prior and after exposure to OMARC. Results indicate that participants are able to better identify different lung sounds, going from an average of 63% (S.D. 18.3%) in the pre-test evaluation to an average of 90% (S.D. of 11.5%) after practising with OMARC. Furthermore, participants indicated in a user satisfaction questionnaire that they found the application helpful, easy to use and that they would recommend it to other persons in their field.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  OMARC is an online multimedia application for training health care students in the assessment of respiratory conditions. The software integrates multimedia technology and health-care education concepts to facilitate learning, while being useful and easy to use. Results from a pilot study indicate that OMARC significantly helps to improve the capacity of the users to correctly identify lung sounds for different respiratory conditions. In addition, participants' opinions about OMARC were quite positive: users were likely to recommend the application to other persons in their field and found the application easy to use and helpful to better identify lung sounds.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada; Office of the Dean of Science, Faculty of Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada. Electronic address: Oscar@mun.ca.
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Meruvia-Pastor
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada.
authors.forename: Pranjal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Patra
authors.affiliation: GI/Hepatology South Health Campus, Calgary, AB, Canada.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Andres
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada.
authors.forename: Creina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Twomey
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada; Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada.
authors.forename: Lourdes
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Peña-Castillo
mesh_terms: D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training / Q000379:methods*; D020407:Internet / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019212:Multimedia / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012131:Respiratory Insufficiency / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D012984:Software
keywords: Education and training towards lung sounds assessment; Online multimedia applications; Respiratory health assessment; Usability and user satisfaction questionnaire