AAHPM Assessment Workgroup: Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Assessment Needs and Directions

Medical education is moving towards competency based medical education (CBME). This provides opportunities and challenges for the field of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (HPM). The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) created the Assessment Workgroup to spearhead a shared vision and process to implement high-quality assessment of fellow performance.

The workgroup solicited the assessment experiences of program directors (PD) and recently graduated fellows across HPM fellowship programs to understand the needs of the community and inform the group's next steps.

In 2022, a RedCap survey was emailed to HPM PDs asking about the methods of fellow assessment in their program and their confidence in those methods. Those PDs then sent a similar survey to their graduating fellows. Survey data was analyzed using SPSS. Qualitative analysis of narrative responses was conducted by the workgroup.

56 PDs and 64 fellows responded. Nearly 50% use four or less assessment tools. Fellows reported greater confidence in assessment tools compared to PDs (83% vs. 68%). The most common assessors were physicians followed by interdisciplinary faculty. Many PDs (61%) reported no formal training in assessment and most reported dissatisfaction with faculty development in assessment (66%).

There is a lack of training and resources for HPM PDs in fellow assessment, and a need for faculty development. Fellows are engaged and should be invited as collaborators in this work. The AAHPM Assessment Workgroup is creating a nationally available resource of tools and accompanying faculty development materials.