Rotation X: An Innovative Quality Improvement Focused Curriculum Built Into an Internal Medicine Residency.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Healthcare Quality Improvement
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandates resident participation in quality improvement (QI) and patient safety (PS) initiatives.
• Physician performance evaluations increasingly incorporate quality of care and patient experience metrics.
• Many internal medicine residency programs lack a robust QI and PS curriculum.

Purpose of the Study:

• To longitudinally integrate a structured QI and PS curriculum into an internal medicine residency program.
• To enhance resident training in essential healthcare quality and safety domains.
• To develop an adaptable curriculum for QI and PS education.

Main Methods:

• Implemented 'Rotation X,' a mandatory one-week longitudinal curriculum for postgraduate year 1 and 3 residents.
• Included sessions on clinical documentation improvement (CDI), root cause analysis (RCA), and multidisciplinary communication.
• Incorporated patient perspectives and specific quality improvement topics like catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI).

Main Results:

• Over 80% of senior residents (PGY-3) found key sessions (e.g., heart failure/pharmacy, RN-MD, RCA, CDI, CAUTI) very or extremely useful.
• More than 75% of interns (PGY-1) found all sessions at least somewhat useful, with over 50% deeming them very or extremely useful.
• The curriculum was well-received by both intern and senior resident cohorts.

Conclusions:

• The developed QI and PS curriculum ('Rotation X') was successfully integrated into an internal medicine residency program.
• The curriculum effectively engaged residents in critical quality improvement and patient safety domains.
• Rotation X is adaptable and can be tailored to meet specific program goals in QI and PS education.