Graduate Medical Education Data in the United States: Availability and Accessibility Across National Organizations

Longitudinal, multi-organizational data have enormous potential for improving graduate medical education (GME) yet aggregating and sharing that data remain difficult.

To determine what data is collected and how data is shared by US medical education organizations, as a next step toward expanded sharing of GME data.

Ten multispecialty US medical education and licensing organizations that participated in the 2019 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conference completed a pre-meeting data survey. Leaders from 9 of these organizations participated in semi-structured interviews conducted between January 2021 and May 2022. Content analysis of survey data and interview transcripts were used to construct a data inventory. Each of the 9 interviewed organizations reviewed and updated their inventory in January and February 2024. Inductive analyses of interview transcripts were conducted to identify additional themes.

The pre-meeting survey and interviews had a 100% (10 total) and 90% (9 of 10) response rate, respectively. Study participants collect a large amount of GME-related data, some of which is duplicative. None collect longer-term outcomes, including patient outcomes. There is also no common physician identifier used by all organizations, although Association of American Medical Colleges ID and National Provider Identifier have been adopted most widely. All organizations share data to varying degrees. Two themes emerged regarding ongoing efforts to expand data sharing: perceived benefits of a harmonized system and challenges to implementation.

Data are increasingly available from organizations collecting national GME data in the United States.