February 22, 2018By Lance Baily

Objectivity Plus Allows Healthcare to Track Quantitative Performance Across Continuum with Quantum

Healthcare is finally beginning to fully understand the need for ongoing performance based assessment through simulation. One company, Objectivity Plus, has been focusing their efforts to address this specific need with “Quantum”, a tablet-based system that quantitatively measures performance in simulation using an instructor-mediated assessment. The platform is designed to measure a participant’s integrated knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and then provides detailed score reporting and customized remediation, evaluating an instructors level of severity. Quantum also features an exceptional administrative scheduling, mass communication tools, and robust reporting. Perhaps your local educational and professional healthcare institutions could utilize Quantum to assess performance for transitioning professionals, allowing for longer-term improvements?

How Does Quantum Provide a Valid and Reliable Assessment?

Quantum’s validity evidence spans eight facets of construct validity: content, substantive, structural, generalizability, external, consequential, responsiveness and interpretability (Messick, 1989, 1995; Medical Outcomes Trust, 1995). Regarding reliability and standard error, Quantum provides a direct estimate of the modeled error variance for each estimate of a learner’s ability, an item’s difficulty, and an instructor’s severity (Wright & Masters, 1982; Wright & Stone, 1979). These standard errors provide a quantification of the precision of individual person measure, item difficulty, and instructor severity, and can be used to describe the range (i.e., confidence intervals) within which each learner’s true ability, item’s true difficulty or instructor’s true severity falls.


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Applications for Quantum Performance Assessment

Hospitals: Operates in the HR and Risk Management vertical to validate clinical competency: For hospitals, Quantum operates in the HR vertical. Quantum, an instructor-mediated, performance assessment used in a simulation laboratory to assist instructors to objectively measure a learner’s performance and document his or her clinical competency. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) noted that healthcare organizations have historically relied on education and experience to support competence, but an increasing number of healthcare organizations are seeking objective measures of a nurse’s knowledge that is required for safe practice. Whether it is to drive an educational intervention to improve safe practice or safely decrease the length of orientation for new employees using simulation for teaching and learning reflects a presumption that learning is taking place and the teaching is effective. How do you know if you don’t measure it objectively?



Education: Measures student performance in school sim labs: Measure student performance and validate competency with Quantum, the first and only instructor-mediated, performance assessment that has the capability to estimate and adjust for instructor and item variations to produce fair and objective student test scores. Quantum is comprised of several standardized clinical scenarios for use in the simulation laboratory that each student must successfully complete in order to demonstrate competence in key areas. Quantum incorporates educational learning and critical thinking theories, and measures all domains of learning. Psychometrically sound, customizable, legally defensible, touch-screen Tablet technology. Includes instructor and student scheduling, communicating, and reporting.

Core Features to Quantum


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Quantum uses a simple, straight-forward approach to the customer experience, integrating web site and tablet, with following steps:

  • AdminIT – Select the clinical scenario, instructor and participant
  • PlanIT – Create the test administration schedule and communicate to all involved
  • RateIT – Grab your tablet! It’s time time to rate the participants performance in the Sim Lab
  • DebriefIT – Review definitive feedback on the participant’s performance, a crucial part of the debrief process
  • ScoreIT – Access definitive feedback and customized remediation allows learners to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and shows them how to improve where weak or build upon what they do best

Dr. Hetherman, founder and lead psychometrician for Objectivity Plus recently shared how Quantum is working in simulation-based healthcare environments saying “When simulation is used as a teaching tool, Quantum can be used as a formative assessment to meet this approach. Quantum can provide formative feedback to the learner with the intent to improve learning and future performance. The research proves that the development of competence is dependent upon learners receiving formal feedback as part of a continuous assessment cycle. Objectivity Plus is passionate about continuous learning, and Quantum was developed with that in mind. This tool goes a step further than just providing the assessment. We provide each learner with customized remediation which enables them to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and then show them how to improve on items where they are weak or need to build upon what they do best. Ultimately, Quantum provides a holistic view of the learner in either formative or summative experiences.”

Learn more about Quantum on the Objectivity Plus Website today!


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