Genomic Medicine in Clinical Practice
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Responsibilities: Project Lead, Instructional Design, eLearning Development
Target Audience: Providers seeking to integrate genomic medicine into their practice
Tools Used: Google suite, Adobe suite, Microsoft Office suite, Zoom, Qualtrics, Brightspace (Desire2Learn)
Company: Harvard Catalyst’s Postgraduate Education Program at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Clinical and Translational Science
Year: 2022-3
Overview
Overview
Healthcare professionals are realizing the importance of understanding genomic medicine due to patients' increasing use of direct-to-consumer genetic tests that often produce confusing or worrisome results.
To address this need, I collaborated with geneticists and genetic counselors from the Harvard hospital system to create a user-friendly online course. This course is self-paced and includes interactive video lectures, assessments to check understanding, practice exercises, and asynchronous discussions facilitated by experts.
Design
Design
I joined the course team after the project had experienced a two-year setback due to poor project management. Stakeholders were frustrated with the slow progress and the lack of a clear development plan. The previous Project Lead had initiated the project prematurely, and many meetings under their leadership seemed unproductive.
Recognizing the need for a fresh approach, I advocated for a course redesign. I collaborated with several members of our Course Committee to restructure the course using backward design. We first defined the desired learning outcomes, then identified the learning activities necessary for participants to achieve those outcomes, and finally established the course goals that would guide our development efforts. As a result, we established four main course goals:
Understand the significance of genomics in medicine and the role of family health history, including its implications for patient testing and counseling.
Gain practical knowledge about the molecular basis of genetic diseases, testing methods, and considerations for selecting and interpreting genetic test results.
Explore the various applications of genetic testing and screening in different medical specialties and primary care settings, both current and emerging.
Examine the ethical, legal, and social issues that have influenced existing practices in genomics, as well as the ongoing debates surrounding the field.
By taking a step back and carefully designing the course, we aimed to address the previous challenges and ensure a more effective and purposeful development process.
Development
Development
When I joined Harvard Catalyst, my colleagues were enthusiastic about the fresh perspective I brought to the table. This perspective was crucial in tackling longstanding issues that had been holding back our course development efforts. Working closely with our Media Producer, we devised a development plan that focused on addressing the most urgent problems, particularly concerning the accessibility, citation style, and overall appearance of our lecture videos.
We implemented the revamped development plan for the course, aiming to ensure consistent adherence to accessibility standards, establish a standardized citation style, and create a cohesive and unified aesthetic throughout the entire course. By doing so, we aimed to improve the overall quality and user experience of the course.
We applied updates retroactively where needed and invited an additional 24 faculty to lecture for this course, producing over 8 hours of instructional video content within a 4-month recording window.
Assessments and Activities
Assessments and Activities
Once we had divided the lecture videos into six modules, our course team faced the challenge of balancing the varying sizes of these modules with our goal of providing participants with evenly distributed content as they progressed through the course at their own pace. We decided to incorporate assessments and activities that would help maintain a consistent pace while preserving the module structure.
To achieve this, we developed a check-for-understanding quiz for each lecture. These quizzes served as self-assessments, allowing participants to gauge their understanding of the material. Automated feedback was provided, with links back to specific timestamps in the corresponding lecture video, enabling participants to review explanations for questions they had answered incorrectly.
In addition, we included several summative assessments throughout the course as practice exercises. These exercises served two purposes: they synthesized content from multiple video lectures and marked the completion of modules. They also helped break up long stretches of content within larger modules, ensuring a more manageable learning experience for participants.
Final* Product
Final* Product
Genomic Medicine in Clinical Practice launched its first iteration in fall of 2022 with over sixty participants. The asynchronous, fully remote course was organized into six modules:
Introduction to Genomic Medicine & Family History Collection
Testing Technologies & Laboratory Report Analysis
Clinical Applications of Genetic Testing
Research Applications of Genomic Screening
Ethical, Legal, and Cultural Issues of Genomic Medicine, and
Next Steps
Participants could complete the course at their own pace anytime within the three-month course duration. Successful completion awarded participants up to 12.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits, in addition to a certificate of completion.
Response
Response
We earned an average overall satisfaction score of 4.76 out of 5, the highest score among online offerings in 2022.
One participant remarked:
"Overall, I thought the course was produced really well. Lecturers were experts in their fields and all did a great job teaching their content in an informative and accessible way for the non-expert. I enjoyed the way the videos were designed and how all the slides had a similar feel/style. I also appreciated the links/references provided at the bottom of each video."
Another said:
"This course was excellent in providing broad understanding of the concepts of genetic testing and the ethical implication of this work. Thank you."
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