Structural Competency in Simulation-Based Health Professions Education: A Call to Action and Pragmatic Guide.

SUMMARY STATEMENT: Simulation-based health professions educators can advance diversity, equity, and inclusion by cultivating structural competency, which is the trained ability to discern inequity not only at an individual level, but also at organizational, community, and societal levels. This commentary introduces Metzl and Hansen's Five-Step Model for structural competency and discusses its unique applicability to the metacognitive underpinnings of simulation-based health professions education. We offer a pragmatic guide for simulation-based health professions educators to collaboratively design learning objectives, simulation cases, character sketches, and debriefs in which structural competency is a simulation performance domain, alongside patient management, resource usage, leadership, situational awareness, teamwork, and/or communication. Our overall goal is to promote a paradigm shift in which educators are empowered to partner with patients, colleagues, and communities to recognize, learn about, and challenge the factors driving health inequities; a skill that may be applied to a broad range of health professions education within and outside of simulation.

Implementation of ED I-PASS as a Standardized Handoff Tool in the Pediatric Emergency Department.

INTRODUCTION: Communication, failures during patient handoffs are a significant cause of medical error. There is a paucity of data on standardized handoff tools for intershift transitions of care in pediatric emergency medicine (PEM). The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) initiative was to improve handoffs between PEM attending physicians (i.e., supervising physicians ultimately responsible for patient care) through the implementation of a modified I-PASS tool (ED I-PASS). Our aims were to: (1) increase the proportion of physicians using ED I-PASS by two-thirds and (2) decrease the proportion reporting information loss during shift change by one-third, over a 6-month period. METHODS: After literature and stakeholder review, Expected Disposition, Illness Severity, Patient Summary, Action List, Situational Awareness, Synthesis by Receiver (ED I-PASS) was implemented using iterative Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, incorporating: trained "super-users"; print and electronic cognitive support tools; direct observation; and general and targeted feedback. Implementation occurred from September to April of 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when patient volumes were significantly lower than prepandemic levels. Data from observed handoffs were collected for process outcomes. Surveys regarding handoff practices were distributed before and after ED I-PASS implementation. RESULTS: 82.8% of participants completed follow-up surveys, and 69.6% of PEM physicians were observed performing a handoff. Use of ED I-PASS increased from 7.1% to 87.5% ( p < .001) and the reported perceived loss of important patient information during transitions of care decreased 50%, from 75.0% to 37.5% ( p = .02). Most (76.0%) participants reported satisfaction with ED I-PASS, despite half citing a perceived increase in handoff length. 54.2% reported a concurrent increase in written handoff documentation during the intervention. CONCLUSION: ED I-PASS can be successfully implemented among attending physicians in the pediatric emergency department setting. Its use resulted in significant decreases in reported perceived loss of patient information during intershift handoffs.

What to know about 2.0: Revisions to the pediatric emergency medicine milestones.

Introduction: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) adopted educational milestones for trainee assessment in 2013, as a key component of the Next Accreditation System. Two years later, the ACGME, American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), and American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM) collaborated to create specialty-specific subcompetencies in pediatric emergency medicine (PEM). Since that time, emerging data have demonstrated the need to revise specialty milestones. Consequently, the ACGME summoned a working group to revise the original PEM milestones. Methods: The PEM Milestones 2.0 Working Group convened in April 2021, comprising diverse representation from ACGME staff, PEM and EM attendings, PEM fellowship program directors, PEM fellows, and community members, overseen by the ACGME's vice president for milestones development. The group met virtually six times over 3 months, with concurrent independent and subgroup work, to draft the PEM Milestones 2.0 and supplemental guide. Results: The working group's revisions generated concise descriptions of behavioral anchors to define skill acquisition more accurately; attention to the transition from residency to fellowship training; incorporation of harmonized milestones for non-patient care and non-medical knowledge domains; and increased emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion. A supplemental guide was also designed to aid programs in designing programmatic assessment related to specialty-specific milestones. Conclusions: The PEM Milestones 2.0 provide an updated, specialty-specific framework to guide the development and assessment of PEM fellows and training programs. Future work may focus on faculty and learner development, advancing validity evidence, strengthening content expertise, and integrating milestones with specialty-specific entrustable professional activities.

Chronic Non-infectious Osteomyelitis Mimicking Scurvy as the Presenting Sign of Crohn's Disease: Case Report.

Chronic non-infectious osteomyelitis (CNO) is a rare, inflammatory process associated with pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Signs and symptoms of CNO parallel scurvy, a nutritional deficiency that can affect children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This is the first report of a child initially thought to have scurvy, then subsequently diagnosed with CNO as the presenting manifestation of Crohn's disease. This case enhances the literature elucidating extra-intestinal manifestations of IBD and pediatric nutritional deficiencies.