How Real Time Assessment Makes You a Better Chiropractor
Since chiropractic education emphasizes practical application, including supervised clinic work, feedback is an important part of your training. Learn how real-time feedback and assessment can make you a better chiropractor and enhance your student experience.
The assessment of chiropractic students is a crucial and multifaceted process designed to ensure that future practitioners can provide safe and effective patient care. Traditionally, students would need to be present in an assessment center with a supervisor in order to receive immediate feedback on their technique. However, technology is beginning to change that.
What is Real Time Assessment in Chiropractic Training?
Professors and supervisors now commonly use apps and computer programs to assess their students.
Not all schools are the same, however. Some university systems may lag and leave students wondering about their progress. In some instances, it can take weeks for student records to update while files are shuffled from one system to another.
Other schools employ “real time assessment” by using an app or program that updates instantly. Both supervisors and students have open access to the app, giving students a quick and easy way to review their records, logged time, supervisor comments, and more. Real time assessment also allows professors to update records quickly and process evaluations without any information delay for the students.
At Northwestern Health Sciences University, for example, their award-winning assessment app gives students the ability to get real-time feedback on their technique and grow confidence as chiropractors. In other words, real time assessment can make you a better chiropractor.
Watch the three part video series below to see how students are reacting to and using the app.
How Real Time Feedback Helps Students
Peer and faculty feedback, along with self-assessment, contribute to shaping students into well-rounded and patient-focused practitioners. At NWHSU, the Zoho Assessment App allows them to progress more quickly than they would in a conventional assessment setting.
As NWHSU’s Christopher Smoley, DC explains, “One of the requirements for chiropractic education is that interns have to meet a set amount of skills at a certain level or threshold. The app has graphs that update in real time and show where they are on each of those skills and where the threshold is. Then they can see where they need to be by the time graduation comes. If they are behind, it gives them the information they need to talk to their supervisor and ask for advice.”
Real time feedback allows for multifaceted monitoring of students’ progress. This includes their chiropractic skills as well as other skills acquired in their training, such as diagnostic imaging.
Apps and programs can keep students on track better than the more conventional way of assessment. “At NWHSU we have our own clinics on campus where our chiropractic clinicians and their student interns are seeing patients. But then we also have numerous chiropractors out in the community that take our students for internships. We provide these community chiropractors access to the same app and electronic rubrics used on campus. In their own clinic with the interns, they can provide the same observations and feedback students on campus would also be getting,” says Dr. Smoley.
The Future of Chiropractic Assessment
Open access to all your information and the ability to track your skills allows you to inform and tailor your own learning experience. This multifaceted approach ensures that as a graduate of a chiropractic program, you are not only knowledgeable but also well-prepared to deliver safe, effective, and patient-centered care. In this way, real time assessment can make you a better chiropractor.
As chiropractic education continues to evolve, so too will the methods of assessment, ultimately contributing to the development of competent and compassionate chiropractic practitioners.
Your next step: Reach out for more information. If you want to build a career in chiropractic medicine, NWHSU’s chiropractic school will prepare you for success. Start your exploration of the program today! Reach out to NWHSU for personalized support on your path.