Developing Content for Pediatric Hospital Medicine Certification Examination Using Practice Analysis

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Hospital Medicine
• Medical Education
• Professional Certification

Background:

• The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) and Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) subboard established a need for a certification examination.
• A practice analysis was crucial to develop a content outline for the inaugural PHM certification exam.
• This study details the systematic approach used in the practice analysis process.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the development of a content outline for the Pediatric Hospital Medicine certification examination.
• To outline the systematic practice analysis methodology employed by the ABP and PHM subboard.
• To ensure the certification exam blueprint accurately reflects the scope of PHM practice.

Main Methods:

• A panel of 12 pediatric hospitalists created a draft content outline using diverse resources.
• Knowledge was categorized into 13 domains and 202 subdomains.
• Practicing pediatric hospitalists identified via the ABP database rated the frequency and criticality of content areas.

Main Results:

• 800 full-time pediatric hospitalists responded to the survey.
• Content domains rated as highly critical and frequent were weighted more heavily in the exam blueprint.
• Both community and non-community pediatric hospitalists showed high concordance in their ratings (P = .943).

Conclusions:

• The practice analysis demonstrated concordance in domain and task ratings across different practice settings.
• Minor differences in ratings were attributable to practice setting variations.
• The structured, iterative practice analysis engaged the PHM community and accurately reflected the required knowledge base.