Quality and Health Equity Dashboards for Internal Medicine Residents: Interactive Displays to Promote Systems-Based Practice and Practice-Based Learning and Improvement.

Background Quality measures help identify gaps and disparities in care delivery and prioritize opportunities to improve health. Calls to enhance Systems-Based Practice and Practice-Based Learning and Improvement competencies for residency training cite the need for quality measures for trainees as central to this effort. The authors sought to demonstrate the feasibility of creating a residency program data visualization dashboard to examine individual and program quality measures for an internal medicine residency program within Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Methods An interactive display was developed to allow for easy visualization of quality and operational measures through an iterative design process. The dashboard displays data for individual residents, residency classes (PGY1-3), and the entire program, including quality measures, systems measures, and patient diagnoses. An iterative process continues to improve the functionality and usefulness of the dashboard. Results It is feasible to create a dashboard to visualize individual and program quality measures and health equity measures for a residency program using a learner-centered approach and alignment with institutional goals through collaboration between education and operational teams. Future studies will examine the audit and feedback process, resident perceptions, and changes to patient outcomes. Conclusion Use of dashboards in graduate medical education is feasible and can be used to help residents and residency programs identify gaps in quality of care.

Twelve Tips for Students in Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) are a curricular structure for medical clerkships grounded in continuity across learning environments and experiences. There has yet to be a peer-reviewed article directly advising students in LIC programs. Twelve tips were created based on a comprehensive literature review of LICs and supported by the cumulative experience of the authors. They are ordered in four sequential groups: The first three tips discuss the importance of the relationships that are built between students and their patients (Tip 1), preceptors (Tip 2), and peers (Tip 3). Next we cover health systems, and offer advice on how students can integrate their learning (Tip 4), use technology to their advantage (Tip 5), and practice systems thinking (Tip 6). We then discuss the educational benefits when students take an active role in patient care (Tip 7), their own learning (Tip 8), and the feedback process (Tip 9). Finally, we cover the importance of self-care (Tip 10), reflection (Tip 11) and patience (Tip 12) during a LIC. These tips are designed to help students understand the pedagogical theory that underpins LICs, take an active role in their education, and maximize learning and wellness during their clerkship.

Listening Beyond Auscultating: A Quality Initiative to Improve Communication Scores in the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Care Practitioners and Systems Survey.

INTRODUCTION: Physician communication is critical to patient care. However, integration of sound communication practice with clinical workflows has proven difficult. In this quality improvement initiative, medical students used the rapid improvement model to test interventions that could enhance patients' perception of listening by physicians as measured by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey. METHODS: Literature review and process analysis yielded 42 potential interventions, of which 24 were feasible for implementation. Small-scale testing established the 4 most promising interventions; pilot testing was subsequently undertaken on the entire Medicine service. Patient and physician feedback guided further refinement. The final intervention used a structured reminder embedded in the electronic health record to direct physicians to begin interviews by eliciting patient concerns. RESULTS: Patient concerns elicited after implementation included pain symptoms (28%), disease or treatment course (16%), and discharge planning (10%). In the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, physician listening scores rose from a 2014 average of 73.6% to 77% in 2015. DISCUSSION: Among 24 tested interventions, an open-ended question was most feasible and had the greatest perceived impact by hospitalists and patients. A structured reminder embedded in required electronic medical record documentation facilitated the behavioral change without being overly burdensome to physicians and established a mechanism to enact change in practice. CONCLUSION: Medical students used established improvement methods to promote patient-centered care and align patient and physician agendas, providing a strategy to improve hospitalized patients' perceptions of physician listening.

Perspective: Creating the next generation of general internists: a call for medical education reform.

The United States is faced with an increasing shortage of physicians in the primary care workforce. The number of medical school graduates selecting careers in primary care internal medicine has fallen dramatically since 1985. Although political, financial, and organizational reform of the medical system is necessary, these changes will address only part of the problem. Endeavors designed to ameliorate this current crisis in primary care practice must also address the education and training of future primary care internists. Learners require specialized training in primary care internal medicine to be able to provide high-quality, patient-centered, outcome-oriented care. This article examines the impact of educational interventions in undergraduate medical education (UME) and graduate medical education (GME) on primary care internal medicine career choice and makes suggestions for future educational changes. Suggested UME changes include providing early longitudinal clinical experiences and providing the option for an integrated ambulatory third year of training. Suggested GME changes include early, sustained exposure to general internal medicine and differentiated training tracks for residents interested in primary care. Key among these changes are that medical students and residents must have adequate mentorship from primary care internists and clinical experiences in highly functioning primary care settings established as patient-centered medical homes. Academic centers have a unique opportunity to contribute to these imperatives by reengineering the practice of primary care in a way that embodies the core values of effective, patient-centered care.