Development of a web-based Application for Digital Findings and Documentation in Physical Therapy Education

Bernadette SPIELER, Harald BURGSTEINER and Karin MESSER-MISAK

Abstract

Findings in physiotherapy have standardized approaches in treatment, but there is also a significant margin of differences in how to implement these standards. Clinical decisions require experience and continuous learning processes to consolidate personal values and opinions and studies suggest that lecturers can influence students positively. Recently, the study course of Physiotherapy at the University of Applied Science in Graz has offered a paper based finding document. This document supported decisions through the adaption of the clinical reasoning process. The document was the starting point for our learning application called “EasyAssess”, a Java based web-application for a digital findings documentation. A central point of our work was to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and usability of the web-application through usability tests utilized by both students and lecturers. Results show that our application fulfills the previously defined requirements and can be efficiently used in daily routine largely because of its simple user interface and its modest design. Due to the close cooperation with the study course Physiotherapy, the application has incorporated the various needs of the target audiences and confirmed the usefulness of our application.

Bernadette SPIELER, Harald BURGSTEINER and Karin MESSER-MISAK

Institute for eHealth, Graz University of Applied Sciences, Austria

GÖDL-PURRER, B., AND SALCHINGER, B Institute for Physiology, Graz University of Applied Sciences, Austria