We debriefed approximately 20 students who participated in this pilot program using a focus group format. They were uniformly excited about the intent of the project and we considered the pilot a success. The students felt that project did allow them to learn more about how patients lived with their medical condition in their lives in their community. The perspective that these

a pp-based interactions with patients gave our students were sometimes quite different than the one they held after taking care only of patients in the hospital. We realized that patient on-line interactions with an individual medical student improved greatly when the patient was introduced to the student in person. Because of logistical issues, the students were not always able to meet the patient in person before the program started, instead only the research assistant briefed the patient.

Because of positive student feedback from focus groups, we took the initial idea of having the student/patient/faculty communication loop on the app only specifically about diabetes, and we recreated the app to be generic in nature. As a result we can now change all the content on our end – so the communication loop can be about any subject: diabetes or smoking or anything else. We will also be experimenting using the app as a communication tool for our students studying for their high stakes board examination.

Despite the technologic requirements of the app has not been completed yet, the educational use has had success in the initial pilot testing. The app is further described in our attachments. The app has 3 different interfaces, depending on the user: administrator/faculty Pl, faculty preceptor and student user.