Implementation of a Problem-Based Presentation Format to Improve Residents' Ambulatory Patient Presentations

The format for residents to present hospitalized patients to teaching faculty is well defined; however, guidance for presenting in clinic is not uniform.

We report the development, implementation, and evaluation of a new standardized format for presenting in clinic: the Problem-Based Presentation (PBP).

After a needs assessment, we implemented the format at the teaching clinics of our internal medicine residency program. We surveyed participants on innovation outcomes, feasibility, and acceptability (pre-post design; 2019-2020; 5-point scale). Residents' primary outcomes were confidence in presentation content and presentation order, presentation efficiency, and presentation organization. Faculty were asked about the primary outcomes of resident presentation efficiency, presentation organization, and satisfaction with resident presentations.

Participants were 111 residents and 22 faculty (pre-intervention) and 110 residents and 20 faculty (post-intervention). Residents' confidence in knowing what the attending physician wants to hear in an outpatient presentation, confidence in what order to present the information, and how organized they felt when presenting in clinic improved (all P<.001; absolute increase of the top 2 ratings of 25%, 28%, and 31%, respectively). Residents' perceived education in their outpatient clinic also improved (P=.002; absolute increase of the top 2 ratings of 19%). Faculty were more satisfied with the structured presentations (P=.008; absolute increase of the top 2 ratings of 27%).

Implementation of a new format for presenting in clinic was associated with increased resident confidence in presentation content, order of items, overall organization, and a perceived increase in the frequency of teaching points reviewed by attending physicians.