Harnessing Innovation to Support Medical Residents in Education and Practice: An Exploration of Need and Preference

This chapter explores how modern information and communication technologies (ICTs), specifically mobile devices, can be used to help medical residents in their academic and professional lives to support their education and practice. A focus group with a cohort of residents from the University of British Columbia was conducted, and responses were coded to identify residents’ needs and preferences regarding communication, collaboration, and information seeking. A thematic analysis of the data revealed that, during residency, there is a need to stay connected to peers distributed across different clinical sites in a coordinated and reliable way and that accessing and storing credible evidence-based medical information sources are desired. Informed by these findings, a potential new mobile application for residents is discussed followed by recommendations for building and integrating a platform to support information and communication technology (ICT) use in residency.