AHA report discusses 7 physician competencies for value-driven care

The American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Physician Leadership Forum released a new white paper last week that discusses and examines the core competencies that are necessary in order to deliver coordinated, team-based, value-driven care, as well as recommendations for how healthcare organizations can learn to develop these skills in the upcoming generation of new physicians.

During its policy process in the fall of 2011, the AHA asked its regional policy boards, governing councils and committees to review the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and American Board of Medical Specialties’ (ABMS) six competencies that physicians should meet at the end of their residencies. The seven core competencies include medical knowledge, patient care, practice-based learning and improvement, systems-based practice, professionalism, interpersonal and communications skills and use of informatics.

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According to the white paper, Lifelong Learning: Physician Competency Development, “Physicians and hospitals will need to work even more closely together as health reforms take shape. As the training ground for a large portion of the nation’s physicians, it is important that hospitals reflect on and understand how they can increase the valuation of the competencies throughout their organizations and specifically the role they can play in helping to ingrain the competencies into training programs within their facilities.”

All of the AHA policy groups were asked to rank how evident and how important each of the competencies were in their organizations, as well as to discuss the skills they felt physicians needed to practice and lead in a reformed healthcare environment and whether the competencies appropriately reflected those skills.

“Members suggested that to work in a reformed healthcare environment, physicians need to develop skills to both lead and facilitate a care team, understand and use systems theory and information technology to improve quality and patient safety and understand organizational behavior,” according to the white paper. “In terms of process changes, members suggested that training for evaluators and faculty on how to teach and evaluate the competencies would provide a more uniform base and ensure that residents receive similar training regardless of training site.”

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Members also shared ways in which they are addressing the gaps in their own organizations through training and development opportunities. Some examples of training include leadership programs for physicians and administrators, dedicated time for residents to learn administrative skills and use of simulation labs.

“We encourage AHA members and physician groups to collaborate on ways hospitals can begin to ingrain the competencies into their organizations and create a workforce of the future,” said John Combes, senior vice president and coauthor of the white paper, in a written statement.

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