Effectiveness of a focused educational intervention on resident evaluations from faculty - A randomized controlled trial

OBJECTIVE: To improve the quality and specificity of written evaluations by faculty attendings of Internal medicine residents during inpatient rotatio ns. DESIGN. Prospective randomized controlled trial. SETTING: Four hospitals: tertiary care university hospital, Veterans' Admin istration hospital, and two community hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-eight faculty and 157 residents from categorical and p rimary-care Internal medicine residency training programs rotating on Inpat ient general medicine teams. INTERVENTION: Focused 20-minute educational session on evaluation and feedb ack, accompanied by 3 by 5 reminder card and diary, given to faculty at the start of their attending month. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Primary outcomes: 1) number of written comme nts from faculty specific to unique, preselected dimensions of competence; 2) number of written comments from faculty describing a specific resident b ehavior or providing a recommendation; and 3) resident Likert-scale ratings of the quantity and effect of feedback received from faculty. Faculty in t he intervention group provided more written comments specific to defined di mensions of competence, a median of three comments per evaluation form vers us two in the control group, but when adjusted for clustering by faculty, t he difference was not statistically significant (P = .09). Regarding feedba ck, residents In the intervention group rated the quantity significantly hi gher (P = .04) and were significantly more likely to make changes in clinic al management of patients than residents in the control group (P = .04). CONCLUSIONS: A brief, focused educational intervention delivered to faculty prior to the start of a ward rotation appears to have a modest effect on f aculty behavior for written evaluations and promoted higher quality feedbac k given to housestaff.