Graduate Medical Education

Program Improvement

The ACGME wants to assure full integration of the competencies and their assessment with learning and clinical care. Program improvement activities can occur as part of educational retreats, departmental Clinical Competency Committees; as well as feedback from internal review reports.

With the implementation of Phase III of the ACGME Outcomes Project, programs must now document the framework for program improvement that includes:

Internal Program Evaluations
External Program Evaluations
National Benchmarks

Internal Program Evaluations include:

Performance on in-training examinations compared to national averages
Rolling board certification pass rates (if available)
Residents' evaluations of the educational program (annual and confidential)
Alumni surveys
Patient satisfaction surveys
Systematic identification by faculty and residents of areas in need of educational improvement
Aggregate performance on program assessment tools

External Program Evaluation Methods, include:

Clinical Practice Indicators or Hospital Core Quality Measures by program
Practice indicators collected by program or institution
Resident surveys (e.g., annual Needs Assessment Survey completed by residents)
Active improvement plans developed and implemented as a result of internal review and/or site review
Cycle length and number of citations by GMEC and ACGME

National Specialty Specific Benchmarks

National specialty specific benchmarks or thresholds
Specialties are encouraged to develop competency based program requirements with threshold for passing

This page was last updated on: November 1, 2007.