Evaluating ambulatory resident practice using an Internet-based system

To improve faculty participation in providing feedback on resident outpatient practice, we designed and implemented an Internet-based evaluation system. Attending physicians scored residents on 7 questions related to specific practice behaviors, and completed a free-text comment section. Between January and June 1998, 516 evaluations for 107 residents were generated using the Internet-based system, compared with 29 handwritten evaluations for 82 residents between January and June 1997. The number of faculty evaluations was 527 for 121 residents in the second half of 1998. An Internet-based evaluation system can improve faculty compliance with performing evaluations.