More Than 2,000,000 Simulated Patient Cases Completed on Full Code App

The Full Code App has crossed a massive medical simulation industry milestone with recently announcing that over 2,000,000 simulated patient cases had been completed, representing a quarter of a million hours of medical simulation by hundreds of thousands of clinical simulation learners around the world! Here we celebrate Full Code’s impressive accomplishment with an article from Michael McLinn, President of Minerva Medical Simulation, who shares more about the company’s unique approach to medical simulation.

With COVID and remote simulation on everyone’s mind, a medical simulation app has been quietly building a large library of content and a dedicated following all around the world. Full Code has achieved simulation at a scale previously unheard of in the industry with 2 million simulations completed, representing 250,000 hours of simulation time.

Recently Full Code added an institutional option for educators looking to incorporate the platform into their curriculum, and cases specific to COVID-19.

Philosophy & Approach 

Full Code is designed around a mission of dramatically increasing the use of medical simulation. As we intuitively know that the best way to retain knowledge is with frequent practice—but frequent practice is realistic only in small quantities.  Full Code embraces this “low-dose, high-frequency” learning model by combining ease-of-use with a large library of quick-to-complete scenarios.

With these elements—and a bit of gamification—Full Code is making medical simulation a daily activity for many users. The average user spends about 10 minutes on a case and in that time can realistically practice their response to a clinical presentation they might only see once or twice a year. Full Code works in web browsers, iPhones/iPads, Android smartphones/tablets and even supports offline use for those less-than-ideal WiFi situations in a clinic or hospital.

Simulation Format & Capability

Each case in Full Code is open-ended and asks the learner to diagnose and treat a virtual patient as they would in the real world. A case consists of a 3D scene with a critically ill patient and an interface allowing the user to examine, stabilize, investigate and treat the patient with over 250 possible actions. Learners must think of a broad differential diagnosis, then use information from over 60 labs & tests to narrow it down. The virtual patient’s vitals will fluctuate realistically in response to treatment choices and the scene evolves as procedures are performed. The case completes with the learner selecting a diagnosis and a final disposition. Lastly a detailed debrief is presented where each action performed is compared against the case’s scoring rubric. The debrief provides a rationale for each critical or recommended action, and a thorough written discussion.

The entire Full Code library is certified as CME and professionals can earn up to 54 AMA PRA Category 1 credit hours.

Expanding Case Library

Frequent practice requires a large library of scenarios and Full Code doesn’t disappoint. The Harvard-trained clinical team at Minerva Medical has been releasing a new emergency medicine case every two weeks for the past few years. The case library is designed around the American Board of Emergency Medicine’s EM Model Core Content, a listing of the common conditions, symptoms and diseases seen in emergency departments.

Each case is peer-reviewed twice and then feedback from the large community of professional Full Code users is constantly incorporated to ensure that the cases reflect best practice for each diagnosis.

Full Code Library Includes:

• 29 cardiovascular cases
• 14 gastrointestinal cases
• 11 toxicology cases
• 9 trauma cases
• 11 neurologic cases
• 17 infectious disease cases
• 14 pediatric cases
• 2 COVID-19 cases
• Rare & unusual presentations (for example, a snake bite case)

Pediatric critical care was the focus of the last major Full Code release, with a new module of pediatric cases, new pediatric 3D models and a pediatric ED scene.

Didactic Remote Simulation

Full Code is an easy addition for medical schools, PA programs, residencies and continuing education departments. Educators can dip their toe in the water by offering Full Code scenarios over video conferencing sessions with their learners. Many have found this to be a useful way to augment or replace in-person simulation during the pandemic. This approach can engender the same kinds of wide ranging dialog that often spontaneously occur during a debrief session.

Institution & Program Use

The real value of the Full Code approach comes when learners use the app on their personal devices, and the program incorporates regular use into the curriculum. At many institutions, students are completing multiple Full Code cases each day and tallying up hours of simulation time each week. Educators are often impressed to find their students playing more cases than assigned. The platform records all completed cases and presents them to the educator on a dashboard. This information represents a unique quantitative measure of learner performance across a wide range of clinical situations. Generally, schools & programs are using Full Code as a learning tool — but some schools are beginning to experiment with Full Code cases as a component of learner assessment.

Scenario Creation

The Full Code platform is built around an easy-to-use web-based authoring tool called Full Code Designer.  The case design tool is being made available to select institutions to create custom Full Code cases and the team plans to add partners interested in publishing their own simulation scenario content.

Moving Forward

Remote and virtual simulations are proving their worth during the COVID era and they’re clearly not going away once everyone returns to the sim lab. Screen-based solutions like Full Code are a compelling and low-cost way for programs and institutions to augment their simulation curriculum—and provide some unique benefits. Full Code is currently the #1 ranked medical simulation on the Apple App Store, and comes with 8 free cases for anyone to try out.

Learn More on the Full Code App Website!