A patient safety approach to setting pass/fail standards for basic procedural skills checklists

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Patient Safety
• Clinical Skills Assessment

Background:

• Standard setting for procedural skills is crucial for patient safety.
• Traditional methods may not adequately assess essential skills for real-world application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a new standard-setting approach for procedural skills checklists prioritizing patient safety.
• To evaluate the impact of this patient-safety-focused approach on student assessment.

Main Methods:

• Faculty identified key dimensions: patient/clinician safety, outcome, and comfort.
• Essential checklist items required a high level of mastery.
• Compared results with traditional Angoff method.

Main Results:

• The patient safety standard necessitated retraining/retesting for a significant number of students.
• Students who would have passed using the Angoff method failed under the new standard.

Conclusions:

• A patient safety-centric standard setting method is essential for procedural skills.
• Demanding high mastery in simulation promotes better patient safety in clinical practice.