Design, implementation and evaluation of a spiral module combining data science, digital health and evidence-based medicine in the undergraduate medical curriculum: A mixed methods study

Abstract

Background

Digital health, data science and health informatics are increasingly important in health and healthcare, but largely ignored in undergraduate medical training.

Methods

In a large UK medical school, with staff and students, we co-designed a new, ‘spiral’ module (with iterative revisiting of content), covering data science, digital health and evidence-based medicine, implementing in September 2019 in all year groups with continuous evaluation and improvement until 2022.

Results

In 2018/19, a new module, ‘Doctor as Data Scientist’, was co-designed by academic staff ( n = 14), students ( n = 23), and doctors ( n = 7). The module involves 22 staff, 120 h (43 sessions: 22 lectures, 15 group and six other) over a 5-year curriculum. Since September 2019, 5,200 students have been taught with good attendance. Module student satisfaction ratings were 92%, 84%, 84% and 81% in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively, compared to the overall course (81%).

Conclusions

We designed, implemented and evaluated a new undergraduate medical curriculum that combined data science and digital health with high student satisfaction ratings.