Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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Portfolios are an innovative approach to evaluate the competency of emergency medicine residents. Three key characteristics add to their attractiveness. First, portfolios draw from the resident's actual work. ⋯ The portfolios can enhance the relationship between faculty and residents since faculty will suggest cases, discuss anomalies, and interact with the residents around the portfolio. The authors believe that in general portfolios can cover many of the general competencies specified by the ACGME while still focusing on issues important to emergency medicine. The authors believe that portfolios provide an approach to evaluation commensurate with the self-evaluation skills they would like to develop in their residents.
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There are widespread and growing concerns about the variable and too often inadequate quality of health care in the United States. As a result, health care quality is being questioned and subjected to scrutiny as never before. ⋯ Emergency medicine will definitely be affected by the quality improvement movement and should quickly move forward to define and establish performance measures for high-quality emergency care in an era when chronic disease dominates the agenda. Emergency medicine should also aggressively work to operationalize a culture of quality to minimize medical errors, to practice evidence-based medicine, to translate research results into clinical practice in a timely manner, and to establish accountability mechanisms for quality improvement and clinical excellence.