A gaming application that uses quick quizzes repeated over a series of days or weeks is gaining favor in health systems across the country as a staff education tool.
Developed at Harvard Medical School and marketed by Qstream, the platform focuses on reinforcing on-the-job behaviors by delivering "Qstreams," or quick Q&A challenges that can be answered in three to five minutes. Company officials say the "spacing and testing" method has been shown to increase knowledge retention up to 170 percent.
"It's Jeopardy for docs," said Duncan Lennox, the Burlington, Mass.-based company's co-founder and CEO. "We've come to the realization that the way we've typically taught things isn't really effective. That isn't how memories are formed."