Development and evaluation of a compartmental picture archiving and communications system model for integration and visualization of multidisciplinary biomedical data to facilitate student learning in an integrative health clinic Meyrick Chow a, * , Lawrence Chan b,1 a School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong b Department of Health Technology and Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong article info Article history: Received 30 April 2009 Received in revised form 10 August 2009 Accepted 23 August 2009 Keywords: Applications in subject areas Architectures for educational technology system Interdisciplinary projects Evaluation methodologies Multimedia/hypermedia systems abstract Information technology (IT) has the potential to improve the clinical learning environment. The extent to which IT enhances or detracts from healthcare professionals’ role performance can be expected to affect both student learning and patient outcomes. This study evaluated nursing students’ satisfaction with a novel compartmental Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS) for the automatic object- oriented integration and visualization of heterogeneous biomedical data. The compartmental PACS was specially designed to support client assessment and clinical education in the integrative health clinic of a university, which is run by a multidisciplinary service team. The sample was 63 nursing students, who were asked to complete a series of realistic tasks using the compartmental PACS. Upon completing the tasks, the Computer System Usability Questionnaire (CSUQ) was administered to assess their satisfac- tion with the system. Results from data analysis showed that nursing students who completed the evaluation had a satisfactory experience with the system. The Information Quality subscale mean was the highest mean of the CSUQ subscales. This is an important finding as the multidisciplinary data visu- alization feature of the system provides a technology-enhanced learning environment that can support nursing students’ efforts to both organize and represent knowledge. Through the compartmental PACS, students are assisted in connecting relevant knowledge via various representations of medical data for the clinical conditions under study. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Clinical education is the supervised acquisition of professional skills, and it is especially appropriate to courses which utilize clinical settings as teaching forums. Clinical education is a principle component of undergraduate nursing curricula, and spans the entire course of a nursing programme. It aims to provide clinical opportunities for nursing students to attain competence at the level of a beginning prac- titioner by integrating their knowledge and skills at progressively higher levels of performance and responsibility whilst under the guid- ance of qualified practitioners. Usually, clinical supervision is based on the principle of a single educator working face-to-face with one or a small number of students, instructing them in the management of a wide range of health conditions. With advancing technology, nurse educators need to think and manage information and knowledge in new ways. They face yet another challenge surrounding the integration of computer technology into the practical experiences of nursing students. Today’s nurses require a broad range of knowledge related to communicating clinical findings, including skills in gathering, retrieving, and manipulating clinical data; documenting care using standardized vocabularies; and linking assessment data with specific outcomes. It seems clear that a differ- ent approach is now required to offer nursing students with varied educational and practice backgrounds the necessary experiences in using information technology in nursing practice. 0360-1315/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.08.022 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 27666547; fax: +852 23649663. E-mail addresses: hsmchow@polyu.edu.hk (M. Chow), htlchan@polyu.edu.hk (L. Chan). 1 Tel.: +852 34008596. Computers & Education 54 (2010) 733–741 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers & Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu