Purpose
It is critical for us to ensure TMSOs’ knowledge of the VERIFY TMS protocol and practical TMS skills remain up-to-date, and that your TMS machine is working properly, to maintain study integrity. This means that all TMSOs will have to undergo two forms of recertification: online and practical. If you do not remain up-to-date with your certifications then you may be asked to be taken off the DOA as a TMSO.
Online Recertification
All VERIFY TMSOs will need to be recertified on TMS annually to maintain consistency of performance, and this is done by completing the recertification quiz.
You should only complete the recertification quiz if it has been a year since you received your overall certificate of completion for the TMS training or last completed the recertification quiz. You should receive a reminder email from WebDCU shortly before your online certification is due.
The recertification quiz has 15 questions from across the TMS training modules and you will be emailed a certificate of completion if you pass with at least 80%. This certificate should be uploaded into the TMS training placeholder in WebDCU. There is no limit to the number of attempts for the quiz.
Below is a very short survey asking about your current TMS experience and confidence with acute stroke patients. Once you have completed the survey you will be emailed a link to the recertification quiz.
VERIFY TMS Recertification Survey
Practical Recertification
All TMSOs need to have performed the TMS protocol with a healthy volunteer or stroke patient in the previous 4 months to remain eligible to be a TMSO for the VERIFY study. This is tracked by the VERIFY TMS team. If it has been 4 months since you’ve performed the VERIFY TMS protocol then you will need to perform the protocol with a healthy volunteer and submit the data for review. The VERIFY TMS team will send you an email if you need to collect a TMS refresher dataset from a healthy volunteer.
During the practical session it would also be good to practice the following:
- Stimulation at 100% during bilateral facilitation, as these have been needed to make a MEP status determination for ~30% of VERIFY stroke patients to-date.
- Doing the session in the same environment where you do TMS with stroke patients, although we understand this isn’t always feasible in clinical environments.
- Please remember to take a photo of the electrode placements and upload it to REDCap along with the TMS data
Please email verify.study.tms@gmail.com if you have any questions or comments.