ACGME Announces Institutions Selected for Pursuing Excellence in Clinical Learning Environments

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - July 13, 2016) - The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is pleased to announce the eight institutions selected to participate as Pathway Innovators in Pursuing Excellence in Clinical Learning Environments. The four-year initiative is aimed at motivating, supporting and spreading innovation to transform clinical learning environments, where residents and fellows pursue training in their specialties or subspecialties.

After an extensive review process by the selection committee comprised of numerous representatives from 21 partnering organizations in health care and education, including a series of site visits to the semi-finalists, the following ACGME-accredited institutions were invited to participate in the first phase of Pursuing Excellence.

• Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC
• Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, OH
• Maine Medical Center, Portland, ME
• Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, Baton Rouge, LA
• Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
• The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, Austin, TX
• University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA
• University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago, IL

"The proposals we received demonstrate the remarkable capacity of the GME community to do great work, and the Pathway Innovators have an exciting opportunity to innovate and share learnings across the community," said Kevin B. Weiss, MD, Senior Vice President, Institutional Accreditation, ACGME. "The ACGME and its partners look forward to collaborating with each of the institutions as they drive change that impacts learners, practitioners and professionals across the clinical learning environment."

The institutions will come together for the first Innovators Forum taking place September 19-21, 2016 at the ACGME office in Chicago. There, they will share information about their proposals, which include ideas for improvements in areas such as patient safety, health care quality, and interprofessional learning.

The ACGME will provide funding of up to $75,000 per year over four years to each institution, with the expectation that each will provide matching funds.

Pursuing Excellence grew out of the ACGME's Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) Program, which provides feedback to the nation's teaching hospitals, medical centers, health systems and other clinical settings in the areas of patient safety; health care quality; care transitions; supervision; duty hours and fatigue management and mitigation; and professionalism.

The ACGME is a private, non-profit, professional organization responsible for the accreditation of approximately 10,000 residency and fellowship programs and the approximately 800 institutions that sponsor these programs in the United States. Residency and fellowship programs educate approximately 125,000 residents and fellows in 130 specialties and subspecialties. The ACGME's mission is to improve health care and population health by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians' education through accreditation.