AMA launches $15M initiative to improve residency training

The American Medical Association on Tuesday launched a five-year, $15 million grant initiative aimed at improving residency training, including projects supporting emerging technologies.

The nation’s largest physician group plans to fund as many as eight “innovations” among U.S. graduate medical education sponsors, medical schools, health systems and specialty societies that promote “systemic change” in graduate medical education.

AMA’s Reimagining Residency initiative builds on the group’s 2013 Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative, in which a consortium of 32 medical schools have been developing a new curriculum to transform the way doctors are trained.

“Applying what we’ve learned through our successful initiative to create the medical schools of the future, we’re embarking on a new effort to reinvent residency training to ensure our future physicians are able to make a seamless transition into residency and ensure they’re prepared for practice—while supporting their well-being and improving patient safety,” said AMA CEO James Madara, MD.

According to Madara, there is a growing disconnect between how students are being taught and the rapidly changing healthcare environment “with today’s emphasis on data, technology, team-based care and—of course—chronic disease management.”

Also See: Medical students, residents receive insufficient EHR training

Indiana University School of Medicine’s 2018 graduating class was the first in the nation to use an electronic health record training system which leverages patient data to enable medical students to virtually treat patients with multiple, complex conditions by navigating records, documenting encounters and placing orders within an app similar to the EHRs used in clinical practice.

The EHR Clinical Learning Platform was developed by IU School of Medicine and the Regenstrief Institute with a $1 million grant as part of the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative.

For the Reimagining Residency initiative, the AMA will release a request for proposals in January, solicit full proposals from selected letters of intent in late February and then announce awards in June.

Organizations selected under the new grant program will join an AMA-convened consortium and work together to evaluate successes and lessons learned, as well as promote wide dissemination and adoption of successful innovations.

“These innovations will help ensure future physicians are prepared for and safely transition from medical school to residency, develop needed skills to enhance their readiness for practice, and train in an environment that promotes their well-being,” said Susan Skochelak, MD, AMA’s vice president for medical education.

Skochelak noted that while healthcare continues to rapidly evolve, residency training has stayed relatively unchanged.

“This new effort will help ensure residents are learning the skills they’ll need to hit the ground running as soon as they complete their residencies,” she adds. “By making these changes, we’ll not only help them enhance patient safety but also improve their well-being as they enter the fast-paced, technologically-driven modern practice environment.”