ACGME In Practice 1

Introduction

As mentioned in the prior sections, the ACGME has mandated that all residency programs including ophthalmology implement measures to teach and assess six new competencies (i.e., patient care, medical knowledge, professionalism, interpersonal and communication skills, practice-based learning, and systems based learning). Appendix 1 lists the specific subcompetencies of the ACGME mandate. The ACGME outcomes project has a ten year timeline for full implementation but achievement of specific milestones is expected in every phase of the project. At the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Iowa, an internal Task Force for the Competencies has been formed to manage the complexities of the ACGME project. The Task Force meets routinely in order to review the available and emerging educational publications, glean “best practices” from the literature, and reach consensus on local implementation. The guiding principles of the Task Force include 1) use multiple tools; 2) Conduct initial face validation evaluation prior to starting a new tool; 3) Determine validity and measure reliability; 4) Insure practicality; 5) Limit the faculty time burden; 6) Stay within budget; 7) Measure useful outcomes data; 8) Insure fairness in the process; 9) Link the learning objectives from the curriculum with the assessments; and 10) Align the strategic objectives and goals of the Task Force with those of the Department, the Hospital, and the College of Medicine (Table 1). The Task Force develops and maintains an implementation matrix that employs multiple tools for assessing the various ACGME competencies. Table 2 describes a sample implementation matrix. In the next section we will describe the model for implementation locally of the results of the efforts of the Task Force on the Competencies.