Measuring the Longitudinal Impact of a Health Professions Education Academy on Scholarship: A Bibliometric Analysis

Academies highlight the educational mission that is often second to clinical and basic science scholarship on health professions campuses. They help bridge the gap between faculty development and continuing professional development. Owing to their popularity, academies have proliferated across the United States and Canada during the past 3 decades. Yet the evidence of the extent to which academies have had impact on their organizations remains largely underdeveloped. In this article, the authors used logic modeling as a framework to align the research mission, programming, and longitudinal goals of the Duke Academy for Health Professions, Education and Academic Development across the span of a decade. Furthermore, we used bibliometric analysis as a program evaluation tool. Through three different case examples, we share how bibliometrics may be used to track faculty publications in health professions education journals and to assess the impact of an academy's investment on its members and the institution at large. Finally, we illustrate that longitudinal implementation of scholarship and grants programming can be an effective strategy for fostering the development of health professions education research and encouraging scholarly innovation.