Galway based company and NUIG spin out Qpercom took home two prestigious prizes at the recent Irish Healthcare Awards for their educational assessment.
Qpercom, founded by its Dutch CEO Dr Thomas Kropmans and Irish co-founder David Cunningham was nominated for two awards for Best Use of IT and Excellence in Healthcare Management at the 2019 Irish Healthcare Awards.
The Galway-based team won the Excellence in Healthcare Management category and to their delight went on to receive An Duais Mhór, the overall outstanding project award.
This award is a non-entry award, chosen by the judges as the ultimate award of the night representing outstanding work in Irish Healthcare in 2019.
Hosted by the Irish Medical Times, the Irish Healthcare Awards celebrates its 18th year as Ireland’s leading medical awards.
The awards recognise projects, individuals and organisations that excel in the Irish healthcare sector.
Qpercom won for leading a Europe wide research study involving eight universities with medical schools in Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK.
This study involved a comparison and analysis of the quality assurance of their clinical skills exams to enhance educational decision making about who should pass or fail.
The paper, titled “Cross-institutional OSCE Quality Assurance as part of an EU assessment strategy; are we equipped for it?” was submitted by Qpercom on behalf of NUIG and its co-authors.
Dr Thomas Kropmans, CEO of Qpercom said that winning these awards is acknowledgement of the value of enhanced assessment in educational decision making.
“We are not there yet and this is a great encouragement to continue our research and push quality standards in assessment.”
Qpercom’s software solutions digitalised the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and Multi-Mini Interviews (MMI).
These assessments are used in healthcare education, recruitment and selection to assess competence of undergraduate and postgraduate clinicians.
Before Qpercom’s automated solutions, used in institutions around the world, correction and analysis of OSCEs and MMIs was a time consuming and costly endeavor.
avid Cunningham, COO of Qpercom stated, “We could not have achieved such highly esteemed accolades without the valuable feedback we received from our loyal customers over the years”.
He also thanked the school of Medicine, Nursing, and Midwifery at NUIG as an early adopter of their work for its support.
“We strive to develop the best software tools and to help develop quality standards in medical education assessment, admission interviews, and beyond to determine the best clinicians.”
“Our mission is to advance assessment in medical education and decision making while continuing to pay close attention to research trends in assessment and the needs of our customers and end users.”
Qpercom spun out from the School of Medicine at NUI Galway in 2008. It provides advanced assessment software solutions to universities globally, including the University of Dundee, Karolinska Institute and the National University of Singapore.
image credit: Kate Hussey photography
