Effectiveness of iterative interventions to increase research productivity in one residency program

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Internal Medicine
• Scholarly Activity

Background:

• Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education mandates research exposure for residents.
• Residency programs face pressure to enhance resident and faculty scholarly output.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of iterative interventions on scholarly activity within an internal medicine residency.
• To assess the effectiveness of quality improvement methods in fostering research productivity.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of a 14-year intervention period using quality improvement methodology.
• Measured outcomes included accepted regional/national abstracts and PubMed-indexed manuscripts.
• Run chart analysis was employed to identify variations linked to interventions.

Main Results:

• Initial increase in regional abstracts, followed by a rise in national abstracts.
• Manuscript productivity saw sustained gains starting in the eighth year.
• Publication rate increased from 0.01 to 1.57 publications/FTE/year.

Conclusions:

• Multiple interventions can stimulate research production among residents and faculty.
• Additive interventions may require years to demonstrate significant benefits.
• Quality improvement methodology is effective for measuring the success of research stimulation efforts.