Practice-Based Learning and Improvement

Residents must be able to investigate and evaluate their patient care practices, appraise and assimilate scientific evidence, and improve their patient care practices.

Competency: Analyze practice experience and perform practice based improvement activities using a systematic methodology.

Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes Objectives:

  • Identify areas for improvement in the quality of patient care and implement strategies to augment one’s knowledge base, procedural skills and decision making skills on a continuous basis.
  • Maintain and develop a desire to learn from sub-optimal outcomes and errors and to use these experiences to improve the system and processes of care.
  • Familiarize with the process of population management and practice assessment.
  • Utilize the necessary resources to complete the process of practice improvement including relevant medical literature, informatics and necessary personnel.
  • Learn and apply basic quality techniques of root cause analysis and rapid cycle change as a member of a multidisciplinary team.
Competency: Locate, appraise and assimilate evidence from scientific studies related to their patients’ health problems.

Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes Objectives:

  • Learn the principles of evidence-based medicine and basic biostatistics (e.g. ARR, NNT, p values, risk ratios, meta-analyses, etc.)
  • Access search engines (e.g., Ovid, MD Consult) to effectively explore the available literature.
  • Incorporate evidence-based medicine into daily practice to optimize patient care.
  • Disseminate educational material to promote patient education as the foundation for compliance with disease management and prevention.
  • Develop a foundation of informatics skills to filter the medical literature and keep current with standards of care.
Competency: Obtain and use information about their own population of patients and the larger population from which the patients are drawn.

Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes Objectives:

  • Learn the epidemiology of common diseases in the regional population including incidence, prevalence, risk factors and availability and utilization of resources.
  • Apply epidemiologic information to improve health maintenance and disease management.
Competency: Apply knowledge of study designs and statistical methods to the appraisal of clinical studies and other information on diagnostic and therapeutic effectiveness.

Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes Objectives:

  • Appraise the literature on selected topics utilizing basic biostatistics and principles of evidence-based medicine.
  • Prepare and participate in Journal Club.
  • Complete a scholarly activity (e.g. basic science or clinical research project, literature review, conference presentation etc.) utilizing informatics skills and faculty support.
Competency: Use information technology to manage information, access on-line medical information and support their own education.

Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes Objectives:

  • Familiarize with practice management reports provided by payors and with the process of pay for performance.
  • Access the current EMR system to generate practice performance reports to assess quality.
  • Explore insurance based websites including CMS for available disease management resources and practice management / reimbursement guidelines.
  • Seek opportunities to employ on line resources to maintain a current knowledge base, current CME certification and board certification status.
Competency: Facilitate the learning of students and other health care professionals.

Knowledge/Skills/Attitudes Objectives:

  • Assess and address the educational needs and objectives of other members of the healthcare team.
  • Engage others including students, colleagues and patients in bi-directional learning.
  • Explore and employ the principles of adult learning to optimize education as a team leader.
  • Provide constructive feedback to students and colleagues and to listen as they reciprocate.