Emergency medicine residencies structure of trainees' administrative experience: A cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: While the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) mandates that emergency medicine residencies provide an educational curriculum that includes administrative seminars and morbidity and mortality conference, there is significant variation as to how administrative topics are implemented into training programs. We seek to determine the prevalence of dedicated administrative rotations and details about the components of the curriculum. METHODS: In this descriptive study, a 12-question survey was distributed via the CORD listserv; each member program was asked questions concerning the presence of an administrative rotation and details about its components. These responses were then analyzed with simple descriptive statistics. RESULTS: A total of 114 of the 168 programs responded, leading to a 68% response rate. Of responders, 73% have a dedicated administrative rotation (95% CI 64.0 to 80.4). The content areas covered by the majority of programs with a dedicated program include performance improvement (n=68), patient safety (n=64), ED operations (n=58), patient satisfaction (n=54), billing and coding (n=47), and inter-professional collaboration (n=43). Experiential learning activities include review of patient safety reports (n=66) and addressing patient complaints (n=45). Most of the teaching on the rotation is either in-person (n=65) and/or self-directed reading assignments (n=48). The most commonly attended meetings during the rotation include performance improvement (n=60), ED operations (n=59), and ED faculty (n=44). CONCLUSION: This paper provides an overview of the most commonly covered resident administrative experiences that can be a guide as we work to develop an ideal administrative curriculum for EM residents.