Designing an evaluation framework for WFME basic standards for medical education

Abstract

Purpose: To create an evaluation plan for the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) accreditation standards for basic medical education.

Methods: We conceptualized the 100 basic standards from “Basic Medical Education: WFME Global Standards for Quality Improvement: The 2012 Revision” as medical education program objectives. Standards were simplified into evaluable items, which were then categorized as inputs, processes, outputs and/or outcomes to generate a logic model and corresponding plan for data collection.

Results: WFME standards posed significant challenges to evaluation due to complex wording, inconsistent formatting and lack of existing assessment tools. Our resulting logic model contained 244 items. Standard B 5.1.1 separated into 24 items, the most for any single standard. A large proportion of items (40%) required evaluation of more than one input, process, output and/or outcome. Only one standard (B 3.2.2) was interpreted as requiring evaluation of a program outcome.

Conclusions: Current WFME standards are difficult to use for evaluation planning. Our analysis may guide adaptation and revision of standards to make them more evaluable. Our logic model and data collection plan may be useful to medical schools planning an institutional self-review and to accrediting authorities wanting to provide guidance to schools under their purview.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge review and feedback from David Gordon, President of the World Federation of Medical Education, and Jack Boulet, Vice President for Research and Data Resources at Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research.

Declaration of interest: For disclosure purposes, we report that Janet Grant assisted in creating the WFME standards for basic medical education. We report no conflict of interest and are alone responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Supplementary material available online

Appendices 1 and 2.