Continuous quality improvement and community-based faculty development through an innovative site visit program at...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Faculty Development
• Community-Based Learning

Background:

• Community-based teaching sites are crucial for medical education.
• Existing methods for evaluating these sites may lack comprehensive support for faculty development.
• The University of Toronto's Department of Family and Community Medicine sought to improve this evaluation process.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe and evaluate a unique site-visit process for community-based teaching sites.
• To develop and implement a continuous quality improvement program for faculty development and site assessment.
• To assess the perceived effectiveness and acceptability of the developed program.

Main Methods:

• Development of a continuous quality improvement program for self- and peer-assessment of community-based teaching sites.
• Pilot testing and adjustments based on feedback, followed by full implementation.
• Training of reviewers using a toolkit including guidelines, checklists, and resources.
• Two-year evaluation of the program involving faculty and reviewer participants.

Main Results:

• The program provides individualized support for faculty development needs and infrastructure requirements.
• Reviewers are trained to offer faculty development at the point of teaching.
• A two-year evaluation indicated that participants found the program comprehensive, consistent, and informative.
• The method was perceived as acceptable for reviewing existing and prospective community-based teaching sites.

Conclusions:

• The developed site-visit process is an effective and acceptable method for evaluating community-based teaching sites.
• The program successfully addresses faculty development needs and provides structured peer assessment.
• The program's design suggests it is transferable to other institutions with community-based teaching initiatives.