The Next Accreditation System in ophthalmology.

The accreditation of graduate medical education through the evaluation of residency programs and the teaching hospitals that offer them in the United States is the primary mission of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). In 1999, the ACGME formulated the six ACGME competencies and, ten years later, developed a multi-year plan to restructure the accreditation process in order to assess educational outcomes. The result of these evolving efforts has been termed the Next Accreditation System (NAS). The stated goals of the NAS are 1) to enhance the ability of the peer-review system to prepare physicians for practice in the 21st century; 2) to accelerate the ACGME's movement toward accreditation on the basis of educational outcomes; and 3) to reduce the burden associated with the current structure and process-based approach. The NAS is an interesting and novel approach to re-engineer the GME accreditation process to become more equitable, fair, and transparent and less costly and burdensome, and to improve resident education and ultimately patient care. The new process will rely upon measurable and meaningful outcomes rather than simply structure and process assessments. Instead of the episodic program biopsies with site visitor reports, detailed program information forms, and formal residency review committee evaluations that characterized the old accreditation system, the NAS will be based upon annual reports of specific quantitative, trended, performance benchmarks; the ACGME milestones; and an institutional clinical competency committee. In addition, a separate but related specialty-specific Clinical Environment Learning Review (CLER) will be a more detailed examination of the learning environment and infrastructure. The CLER, however, will not have a direct role in the accreditation decision-making process of the NAS.

Lee AG ，Arnold AC 《-》

The ACGME Milestone Project in ophthalmology.

The ACGME is moving towards the next generation of accreditation in the USA called the Next Accreditation System (NAS). The NAS is anticipated to reduce the burden on programs to comply with accreditation requirements; to produce meaningful, innovative, and continuous benchmark outcomes data; to use ongoing individual and programmatic milestones to judge performance; and ultimately to produce better trained residents, to improve the quality of care, to reduce health care costs and health care disparities, and to provide objective evidence to the public and other external stakeholders of the quality of graduate medical education across the specialties of medicine. We describe the ACGME milestone development process for ophthalmology. If successful, the NAS will benefit all programs by reducing the programmatic burden and paperwork; increasing accreditation cycle length; and improving all programs through formative and summative feedback.

Lee AG ，Arnold AC 《-》

The next accreditation system in radiology: a report from the APDR residency structure committee.

In a move to emphasize the educational outcomes of training programs, the ACGME has created the Next Accreditation System (NAS). The stated goals of NAS include aiding the ACGME in the accreditation of programs based on educational outcome measures, decreasing program burdens associated with the conventional process-based approach to ACGME accreditation, allowing good programs to innovate while enabling struggling programs to steadily improve, and providing public accountability for outcomes. Diagnostic radiology is among the first group of specialties to undergo NAS implementation and began operating under the NAS in July 2013. This article describes the various components of the NAS and explains the new elements, including the clinical learning environment review program, the milestones, the clinical competency committee, and the self-study visits.

Nicholson BT ，Paladin AM ，Oldham SA ，Hudson KT ，Weissman BN ，Wissman RD ，Davis LP ，Reddy GP ，Heitkamp DE ... -  《-》

Managing the new mandate in resident education: a blueprint for translating a national mandate into local compliance.

Lee AG ，Carter KD 《-》

Assessment of Competence: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education/Residency Review Committee Perspective.

Competency is an individual trait. As an agency that accredits programs and institutions, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) does not define or access competency. However, in the past 15 years the ACGME has promulgated several initiatives to aid programs in the assessment of the competence of their residents and fellows. Those initiatives include the Outcomes Project (which codified the competencies), the Milestones, and the Clinical Learning Environment Review Program. In the near future, the ACGME will implement an initiative by which programs can develop and study the results of competency-based residency curricula.

Potts JR 3rd 《-》