Performance Standards of Comprehensive Airway Management for Emergency Medicine Residents

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Emergency Medicine
• Patient Safety

Background:

• The Emergency Medicine Milestone Project guides resident assessment but lacks defined performance standards.
• Current milestones do not specify proficiency levels for airway management.
• There is a need for objective performance standards for Emergency Medicine trainees' airway management skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish comprehensive airway management performance standards for Emergency Medicine trainees.
• To define standards for both novice and mastery levels of proficiency.
• To create objective benchmarks for assessing airway management competency.

Main Methods:

• Standard-setting procedures were used with a panel of airway management and residency education experts.
• Experts evaluated 51 individual tasks in a simulated airway management scenario.
• Experts identified critical patient safety items and predicted novice and mastery learner performance.

Main Results:

• Experts identified 39 of 51 (76%) airway management tasks as critical for patient safety.
• Novice trainees are not expected to complete all critical tasks due to supervision.
• Mastery-level trainees are expected to complete 49 of 51 (96%) tasks, nearing independent practice.

Conclusions:

• Comprehensive airway management performance standards for Emergency Medicine residents were established using simulation.
• Future research will validate these standards with current residents in real patient care settings.
• These standards provide a foundation for objective assessment of airway management proficiency.