PHYSICIAN COMPETENCIES
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) expects residents to obtain competency in the following six areas to the level expected of a new practitioner:
Patient Care
Residents must be able to provide patient care that is compassionate, appropriate, and effective for the treatment of health problems and the promotion of health.
Medical Knowledge
Residents must demonstrate knowledge of established and evolving biomedical, clinical, epidemiological, and social-behavioral sciences, as well as the application of this knowledge to patient care.
Interpersonal and Communication Skills
Residents must demonstrate interpersonal and communication skills that result in the effective exchange of information and collaboration with patients, their families, and health professionals. Residents are expected to:
● Communicate effectively with patients, families, and the public, as appropriate, across a broad range of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds.
● Communicate effectively with physicians, other health professionals, and health-related agencies.
● Work effectively as a member or leader of a healthcare team or other professional groups.
● Act in a consultative role to other physicians and health professionals; and, maintain comprehensive, timely, and legible medical records, if applicable.
Professionalism
Residents must demonstrate a commitment to carrying out professional responsibilities and an adherence to ethical principles. Residents are expected to demonstrate:
● Compassion, integrity, and respect for others.
● Responsiveness to patient needs that supersedes self-interest.
● Respect for patient privacy and autonomy.
● Accountability to patients, society, and the profession.
● Sensitivity and responsiveness to a diverse patient population, including but not limited to diversity in gender, age, culture, race, religion, disabilities, and sexual orientation.
Practice-Based Learning and Improvement (PBLI)
Residents must demonstrate the ability to investigate and evaluate their care of patients, to appraise and assimilate scientific evidence, and to continuously improve patient care based on constant self-evaluation and life-long learning.
Residents are expected to develop skills and habits to be able to meet the following goals: identify strengths, deficiencies, and limits in one’s knowledge and expertise (self-assessment and reflection):
● Set learning and improvement goals.
● Identify and perform appropriate learning activities.
● Systematically analyze practice using quality improvement (QI) methods and implement changes with the goal of practice improvement.
● Incorporate formative evaluation feedback into daily practice.
● Locate, appraise, and assimilate evidence from scientific studies related to their patients’ health problems (evidence-based medicine).
● Use information technology to optimize learning.
● Participate in the education of patients, families, students, residents, and other health professionals.
Systems-Based Practice (SBP)
Residents must demonstrate an awareness of and responsiveness to the larger context and system of health care, as well as the ability to call effectively on other resources in the system to provide optimal health care. Residents are expected to:
● Work effectively in various health care delivery settings and systems relevant to their clinical specialty.
● Coordinate patient care within the healthcare system relevant to their clinical specialty.
● Incorporate considerations of cost awareness and risk-benefit analysis in-patient and/or population-based care as appropriate.
● Advocate for quality patient care and optimal patient care systems.
● Work in inter-professional teams to enhance patient safety and improve patient care quality.
● Participate in identifying system errors and implementing potential systems solutions.
ACGME CLER PROGRAM:
As a component of its next accreditation system, the ACGME has established the CLER (Clinical Learning Environment Review) program since 2011 to assess the graduate medical education (GME) learning environment of each sponsoring institution and its participating sites.
CLER assesses sponsoring institutions in the following six focus areas:
1. Patient Safety and Quality improvement
2. Transitions in care
3. Supervision
4. Duty hours oversight, fatigue management and mitigation
5. Professionalism
6. Health Care Disparities
Please note the importance of these areas of training which you will continue to strengthen your skills in during residency.
EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAM:
At St. Agnes we are committed to ensuring that residents remain physically and mentally healthy while completing their training program. Residency is an inherently stressful time, and it is important to take care of yourself so that you can get the most out of your educational experience.
If you are experiencing a particularly stressful or otherwise difficult situation, please feel free to contact:
Employee Assistance Program: Fast, FREE, CONFIDENTIAL help for life’s challenges is provided to all employees. You can call or visit the website to receive services 24/7 at no cost to you and is CONFIDENTIAL.
Call 888-267-8126 or visit www.lifeworks.com
(user ID: Ascension; password: ascension). En español: 888-732-9020. TTY: 800-346-9188
This service offers information, support, and online resources, whether you need help managing stress or managing relationships, getting back on track or getting out of debt.
Please feel free to contact any of the faculty, mentors, chief residents or program director, if we can help you in any way. No one is immune to stressors; everyone has challenges sometimes in their life and it is not a sign of weakness to seek help!
Introduction
New innovations is a website which has tools for residency management which make it easy to track if your clinical programs are going in the right direction. This is where you log in your duty hours and procedures, check for daily schedules, upload certifications and documents, among others.
CLICK HERE to login to new innovations.
Schedules
Master schedule - You can access your master schedule for the year on the new innovations website under schedules >> Block scheduling >> View schedule
Assignment/rotation schedules - Each day’s rotation schedule can be accessed from Schedules >> Assignment scheduling >> View schedule
Evaluations
After every block, you will be asked to evaluate your colleagues and faculty. These evaluations can be accessed on new innovations on the left side of the home page under “Evaluations”.
Work/Education (aka Duty) Hours Log in
Residents are expected to log in their work duty hours on a regular basis, ideally daily but at a minimum duty hours must be logged weekly. This is a key component of your professional administrative responsibilities as a resident.
Work hours are logged in electronically in NI, from a PC, tablet or smartphone. From the home page, click on duty hours icon/tab (red arrow), this will bring up a duty hours menu where you will click the “log hours” icon (blue arrow):
Procedure log in
Residents are expected to log in the procedures that were done under supervision. It can be accessed under “Logger” and by clicking on “Procedures”. The attending who has supervised the procedure must be cosigned and needs to sign off for official acceptance into records.