ACGME releases guidance on residency programs

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has released new guidance for graduate medical education in U.S. teaching hospitals and medical centers. The council’s effort creates the framework to reshape the clinical environments in which tomorrow’s physicians learn to deliver quality patient care and respond to rapid developments in healthcare delivery.

The guidance, called the Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) Pathways to Excellence, was summarized in a paper published earlier this week in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The ACGME will also use the framework as the foundation for issuing periodic reports on the performance of graduate medical education (GME) programs in preparing the physician workforce in patient safety and quality improvement.