“I Heart ECGs: A Novel ECG Curriculum Designed for Adult Learners”

Introduction/ Background: Emergency Medicine residents learn more from interactive, case-based, self-directed, and experiential learning strategies over traditional lecturebased didactics.Integration of an ECG curriculum grounded in these adult learning principles can facilitate a learning environment that maximizes engagement and skill acquisition.Objectives: We implemented an ECG curriculum tailored to adult learners to meet our residents' needs.We hypothesize this will bolster residents' confidence in ECG interpretation skills.Curricular Design: A problem-centered general needs assessment found that our residents lacked confidence in ECG competency and were dissatisfied with the ECG curricula.A multifaceted targeted needs assessment uncovered residents' knowledge gaps.We designed the "I Heart ECGs" curriculum to address identified needs.On Mondays, residents receive an ECG, case vignette, and 2-3 open-ended questions.During weekly conference, residents and faculty openly discuss appropriate triage, potential diagnoses, and optimal management.Faculty then unveils the diagnosis and leads a debrief on recognition, management, and clinical insights.Impact: "I Heart ECGs'' has gained popularity with residents and enhanced confidence in ECG interpretation, yielding benefits at both Kirkpatrick levels 1 and 2. Residents completed a 5-point Likert scale survey before curriculum implementation and one year after.Pre-implementation, 76% strongly agreed that an interactive ECG curriculum would be beneficial for their education.This rose to 100% postimplementation.Pre-implementation, only 19% of residents reported confidence in ECG interpretation skills.Postimplementation, this surged to 100%.Similar improvements were seen in confidence identifying and managing various ECG subcategories, showcasing advancement in learning.Future research will explore the curriculum's impact on resident ECG competency and patient outcomes (Kirkpatrick levels 3 and 4).