Specialty milestones and the next accreditation system: an opportunity for the simulation community

The Accreditation for Graduate Medical Education has developed a new process of accreditation, the Next Accreditation System (NAS), which focuses on outcomes. A key component of the NAS is specialty milestones-specific behavior, attributes, or outcomes within the general competency domains. Milestones will mark a level of proficiency of a resident within a competency domain. Each specialty has developed its own set of milestones, with semiannual reporting to begin July 2013, for 7 specialties, and the rest in July 2014.Milestone assessment must be based on objective data. Each specialty will determine optimal methods of measuring milestones, based on ease, cost, validity, and reliability. The simulation community has focused many graduate medical education efforts at training and formative assessment. Milestone assessment represents an opportunity for simulation modalities to offer summative assessment of milestone proficiencies, adding to the potential methods that residency programs will likely use or adapt. This article discusses the NAS, milestone assessment, and the opportunity to the simulation community to become involved in this next stage of graduate medical education assessment.