The ACGME Self-Study—An Opportunity, Not a Burden

Abstract

In 2013, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) implemented the Next Accreditation System.1 A major goal of the new system is for program accreditation to become a continuous process of quality improvement. Accredited residency and fellowship programs report specified data annually to the ACGME. These data are then reviewed by the specialty review committees for compliance with each specialty's requirements. The newest component of this process is the self-study. The self-study is a new and evolving approach to residency and fellowship accreditation. Although a self-study has been used by many educational accreditors, it has not been used in graduate medical education. The ACGME now requires programs, as a part of their 10-year review cycle, to perform a self-study.2,3 Why is this a challenge for programs? This is a new process and tested models are lacking. The approach used by the Liaison Committee for Medical Education is time-consuming and not truly applicable to a graduate medical education program, as it is a much smaller unit of analysis compared to a medical school. To date, there are no templates or sample documents available, nor have any seminars or workshops been presented by representatives from programs that have done this successfully. Programs need to “start from scratch,” and this is not an easy task. Additionally, the more time programs spend on developing a new process, the less time they may have to actually perform the self-study. The purpose of this article is to provide an example of a successful self-study process, along with a sample timeline and self-study materials. This will hopefully guide other programs through the process, and decrease the time spent on developing a new self-study process. Ultimately, this should allow more time to be spent on the performance of a rich and informative self-study.