Does a Team-based Approach Improve Knowledge and Judgment Performance in Electronic Fetal Monitoring?

Electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) has been used as a tool to evaluate fetal wellbeing in obstetrics for decades, with limited results with regard to improve fetal outcomes. There remains wide variation in the interpretation of fetal heart rate (FHR) tracings between different practitioners, which may explain the limited impact of this ubiquitous tool. The Perinatal Quality Foundation Fetal Monitoring Credentialing (PQF/FMC) exam was established to improve patient safety in obstetrical care by optimizing and standardizing the credentialing process for EFM.

The Fetal Monitoring Credentialing (FMC) test is a validated tool to assess the knowledge and judgment of test-takers based on script concordance theory, an approach to testing that allows assessment on real-life situations by comparing to the clinical reasoning of a panel of reference experts.

It is known that in clinical practice patients are cared for by teams of individuals (RN's, CNM, resident physicians and attendings). These individuals are all trained to approach a laboring patient from their own unique training. Even amongst experts in the field there is only moderate agreement on the interpretation of tracings with poor agreement on what constitutes a category III tracing. The absence of complete agreement in clinical practice creates differences in opinions of interpretation and agreement regarding next step in management for obstetric patients.

It is hypothesized that a team-based participation in the Perinatal Quality Foundation Fetal Monitoring Credentialing (PQF/FMC) exam will improve knowledge and judgment scores.