University of Waterloo's Dr. Jeff Nagge, in the School of Pharmacy and the Centre for Extended Learning partnered to create an online course, called MOAT (Management of Oral Anticoagulation Therapy), which includes an artificial intelligence (AI)-based tool provided by Ametros Learning to simulate real life clinic visits by patients. The story was featured in Contact North's January 9, 2020 edition of Pockets of Innovation.
The course develops learners’ knowledge and skills in managing patients taking blood thinner medications. It consists of a 7-week self-paced learning module and a 5-week series of clinical simulations. The learning module is comprised of introductory materials, required readings, a video of a clinical visit, an assignment, an online test, and a short reflective survey. The most innovative aspect of MOAT, however, is the clinical simulation component, which allows learners to interact with eight artificially intelligent patients through a text-based chat window.
Each patient has a unique health record, medication history, and personality representative of the spectrum of patients a pharmacist is likely to encounter in a real clinic. Learners are expected to consult with each of the patients eight times, resulting in a total of 64 consultations. Consultations typically take 15 to 20 minutes, and no two consultation sessions with the same patient are identical.
In 2019, MOAT was honoured by the Canadian Association for Continuing Education for exemplary work in the category “Non-credit Programming under 48 hours.”