The Continuous Residency Improvement Committee (CRIC) – A Novel Twist for Program Evaluation in an Academic Emergency Medicine Residency Program

Abstract

Audience: The continuous residency improvement committee (CRIC) innovation is designed for residency program leadership and residency program coordinators. Introduction: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires residency- training programs to perform ongoing self-study in order to maintain accreditation status and to engage in continuous program improvement.1 Standard evaluation constructs for self-study often fail to capture input from non-traditional stakeholders and do not always result in actionable recommendations for program improvement. We developed the CRIC process to address the need for a user-friendly evaluation construct that yields actionable recommendations for programmatic improvement from a variety of stakeholders and aligns with the ACGME-prescribed continuous self-study process. Objectives: The purpose of this innovation was to develop a novel approach to continuous program evaluation and improvement using a multisource feedback design to improve resident satisfaction with the program’s responsiveness to feedback while addressing the ACGME mandate for self-study. Methods: A committee of rotating reviewers systematically evaluates resident educational rotations over a 12-month period. Reviews focused on obtaining input from both traditional and non-traditional stakeholders in a multisource model in order to document and address deficiencies identified within the rotations. Topics: ACGME self-study, 360-evaluation, program evaluation, program evaluation committee.