Preparing Academic Medical Centers for the Clinical Learning Environment Review: Alliance of Independent Academic Medical Centers National Initiative IV Outcomes and Evaluation.
BACKGROUND
Driven by changes to improve quality in patient care and population health while reducing costs, evolvement of the health system calls for restructuring health professionals' education and aligning it with the healthcare delivery system. In response to these changes, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education's Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) encourages the integration of health system leadership, faculty, and residents in restructuring graduate medical education (GME). Innovative approaches to achieving this restructuring and the CLER objectives are essential.


METHODS
The Alliance of Independent Academic Medical Centers National Initiative (NI) IV provided a multiinstitutional learning collaborative focused on supporting GME redesign. From October 2013 through March 2015, participants conducted relevant projects, attended onsite meetings, and participated in teleconferences and webinars addressing the CLER areas. Participants shared best practices, resources, and experiences. We designed a pre/post descriptive study to examine outcomes.


RESULTS
Thirty-three institutions completed NI IV, and at its conclusion, the majority reported greater CLER readiness compared with baseline. Twenty-two (88.0%) institutions reported that NI IV had a great impact on advancing their efforts in the CLER area of their project focus, and 15 (62.5%) reported a great impact in other CLER focus areas. Opportunities to share progress with other teams and the national group meetings were reported to contribute to teams' success.


CONCLUSIONS
The NI IV learning collaborative prepared institutions for CLER, suggesting successful integration of the clinical and educational enterprises. We propose that national learning collaboratives of GME-sponsoring health systems enable advancement of their education mission, leading ultimately to better healthcare outcomes. This learning model may be generalizable to newfound programs for academic medical centers.
Academic Research Integration, Baylor Scott & White Health, Temple, TX, and Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Internal Medicine, College of Medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center, Temple, TX.
Hania
H
Wehbe-Janek
Office of Graduate Medical Education and Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI.
Tsveti
T
Markova
Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, Kosair Children's Hospital, Louisville, KY.
Rachael L
RL
Polis
Office of Graduate Medical Education, Baylor Scott & White Health, Temple, TX.
Marguerite
M
Peters
Office of Biostatistics, Baylor Scott & White Health, Temple, TX.
Yang
Y
Liu
Academic medical centers; competency-based education; cooperative behavior; education–medical–graduate; patient safety; quality improvement