Using QR Codes to Improve Access to Clinical Educational Resources in the Ambulatory Care Setting

Background: The ambulatory care services division is a multi-site organization offering primary and specialty care services to customers in Virginia and North Carolina. Due to a large geographical area of coverage, the clinical education team has met challenges distributing easily accessible educational material in a timely fashion. Quick response (QR) codes are widely used in the acute care and school settings to disseminate educational material; however, little research is available on the use of QR codes in the ambulatory care practice setting.
Research question: Will quick response (QR) codes positively impact participants’ perception regarding availability of clinical educational resources in the ambulatory care setting?
Purpose: The purpose of this research is to determine if QR codes utilized by participants for educational resources in a multi-site, multi-specialty ambulatory care setting will demonstrate increased self-efficacy in their ability to competently engage in tasks relevant to their job profile and scope of practice.
Methodology: The design is a pre-experimental one-group pre-test/post-test design. A review of QR code usage and location of usage will also be analyzed as part of the study. Study participants will be medical assistants (MA), licensed practical nurses (LPN), and registered nurses (RN) in the ambulatory care services division. This survey result combined with the data from QR code usage will determine if the implementation was beneficial.
Analysis: A modified general self-efficacy scale (GSES) was administered pre-intervention and will be administered post-intervention to measure participants perceived self-efficacy to access clinical educational resources. The post-intervention survey will also query participants use of specific QR codes. Additional data on patient demographics will also be collected.
Results: Research is ongoing with projected completion November 2022.