Residents want real-time clinical performance feedback

(HealthDay)—Adaptations to an automated, near-real-time perioperative management system can provide anesthesiology residents the clinical performance feedback they desire, according to a study published in the January issue of Anesthesiology.

Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, M.D., from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., and colleagues surveyed 48 resident trainees about satisfaction with clinical performance feedback and about preferences for future feedback. They then adapted a perioperative information management system to develop an automated, near-real-time performance capture and feedback tool that provides objective data on clinical performance and requires minimal administrative effort.

The researchers incorporated resident performance on 24,154 completed cases into the automated dashboard, with their own performance data now accessible to them. Residents "agreed/strongly agreed" that they desire frequent updates on their clinical performance on defined quality metrics and they wished to see how they compared with the residency as a whole. Residents had previously reported they "disagreed" that they were receiving feedback in a timely manner (before deployment of the new tool).

"The training of physicians is undergoing massive changes in the coming years," Ehrenfeld said in a statement. "This feedback system is one part of a larger system being designed that will ultimately track a resident throughout their training and allow them to graduate when they have reached an appropriate competency level, rather than simply having served as a resident for a prescribed period of time after medical school. Residents want to know the time spent in training is of value to them, because they defer significant income and make modest salaries during residency and fellowship training, while they are also paying for medical school."

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