Creating the Medical Schools of the Future.

Despite wide consensus on needed changes in medical education, experts agree that the gap continues to widen between how physicians are trained and the future needs of our health care system. A new model for medical education is needed to create the medical school of the future. The American Medical Association (AMA) is working to support innovative models through partnerships with medical schools, educators, professional organizations, and accreditors. In 2013, the AMA designed an initiative to support rapid innovation among medical schools and disseminate the ideas being tested to additional medical schools. Awards of $1 million were made to 11 medical schools to redesign curricula for flexible, individualized learning pathways, measure achievement of competencies, develop new assessment tools to test readiness for residency, and implement new models for clinical experiences within health care systems. The medical schools have partnered with the AMA to create the AMA Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium, working together to share prototypes and participate in a national evaluation plan. Most of the schools have embarked on major curriculum revisions, replacing as much as 25% of the curriculum with new content in health care delivery and health system science in all four years of training. Schools are developing new certification in quality and patient safety and population management. In 2015, the AMA invited 21 additional schools to join the 11 founding schools in testing and disseminating innovation through the consortium and beyond.

The use of health care policy to facilitate evidence-based knowledge translation in emergency medicine.

Health care policy can facilitate emergency medicine knowledge translation (KT). Because of this, the 2007 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference on KT identified a specific theme regarding issues of health care policy and KT. Six months before the Consensus Conference, international experts in the area were invited to communicate on health care policies regarding all areas of KT via e-mail and "Google groups." From this communication, and using available evidence, specific recommendations and research questions were developed. At the Consensus Conference, additional comments were incorporated. This report summarizes the results of this collaborative effort and provides a set of recommendations and accompanying research questions to guide development, implementation, and evaluation of health care policies intended to promote KT in emergency medicine. The recommendations are to 1a) involve appropriate stakeholders in the health care policy process; 1b) collaborate with policy makers when health care policy focus areas are being developed; 2) use previously validated clinical practice guideline development tools; 3) address implementation issues during the development of health care policies; 4) monitor outcomes with performance measures appropriate to different practice environments; and 5) plan periodic reviews to uncover new clinical evidence, new methods to improve KT, and new technologies. To advance the further development of these recommendations, a research agenda is proposed.