Design and implementation of a health systems science curriculum at a large teaching hospital

Abstract

Abstract Background Physicians must increasingly lead change for improvement in the value of health care for individuals and populations. Leadership, stewardship, and population health competencies are not explicitly part of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requirements and are best appreciated in the context of Health Systems Science (HSS). HSS education is best approached at the institutional level, yet almost all graduate medical education (GME) curriculum is at the program level. We describe the process of designing and implementing an institutional HSS GME curriculum in a hospital-based sponsoring institution. Methods A group of diverse stakeholders drafted a curriculum to build competencies in leadership, stewardship, and population health, which was further refined by our Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC) and Resident Forum in the academic years 2015–2017. The refined curriculum was implemented at the institutional level of a large urban teaching hospital with over 80 ACGME accredited programs in the 2017–2018 academic year, participation was tracked and impact surveys were conducted. Results All programs participate in at least parts of the curriculum with sustained use. Annual surveys show a progression in assessment of our target competencies and/or opportunities to reflect and provide feedback. The annual program review meeting and GMEC meetings are used to troubleshoot and identify new curricular opportunities. Conclusion This innovative institutional curriculum has been sustained for over four years and we believe that other training institutions with similar goals will find our experience implementing an institutional curriculum translatable to their clinical learning environment.