Development of an Approach to Assessing Pediatric Fellows’ Transport Medical Control Skills

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Pediatric interfacility transport teams facilitate access to subspecialty care, and physicians often guide management remotely as transport medical control (TMC). Pediatric subspecialty fellows frequently perform TMC duties, but tools assessing competency are lacking. Our objective was to develop content validity for the items required to assess pediatric subspecialty fellows’ TMC skills. METHODS: We conducted a modified Delphi process among transport and fellow education experts in pediatric critical care medicine, pediatric emergency medicine, neonatal-perinatal medicine, and pediatric hospital medicine. The study team generated an initial list of items on the basis of a literature review and personal experience. A modified Delphi panel of transport experts was recruited to participate in 3 rounds of anonymous, online voting on the importance of the items using a 3-point Likert scale (marginal, important, essential). We defined consensus for inclusion as $80% agreement that an item was important/essential and consensus for exclusion as $80% agreement that an item was marginal. RESULTS: The study team of 20 faculty drafted an initial list of items. Ten additional experts in each subspecialty served on the modified Delphi panel. Thirty-six items met the criteria for inclusion, with widespread agreement across subspecialties. Only 1 item, “discussed bed availability,” met the criteria for inclusion among some subspecialties but not others. The study team consolidated the final list into 26 items for ease of use. CONCLUSIONS: Through a consensus-based process among transport experts, we generated content validity for the items required to assess pediatric subspecialty fellows’ TMC skills.