Objective: To assess the practicality of using personal digital assistants (PDAs) for the collection of logbook data, procedural performance data and critical incident reports in anaesthetic trainees.
Design: Pilot study.
Setting: Two tertiary referral centres (in Victoria and New Zealand) and a large district hospital in Queensland.
Participants: Six accredited Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) registrars and their ANZCA training supervisors.
Interventions: Registrars and supervisors underwent initial training for one hour, and supervisors were provided with ongoing support.
Main outcome measures: Reliable use of the program, average time for data entry and number of procedures logged.
Results: ANZCA trainees reliably enter data into PDAs. The data can be transferred to a central database, where they can be remotely analysed before results are fed back to trainees.
Conclusions: This technology can be used to monitor professional performance in ANZCA trainees.