ACGME Chooses New Pathway Leaders for Pursuing Excellence in Clinical Learning Environments Initiative

September 4, 2019

Today the ACGME announced the selection of 10 institutions that will form the second cohort of a national learning collaborative focused on engaging residents and fellows in patient safety.

The 18-month Patient Safety Collaborative is part of the Pursuing Excellence in Clinical Learning Environments (Pursuing Excellence)initiative, which promotes transformative improvement in the clinical learning environments of ACGME-accredited Sponsoring Institutions.

The Sponsoring Institutions chosen for the Patient Safety Collaborative are:

Community Health Network (Indianapolis, Indiana)
Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation (La Crosse, Wisconsin)
Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency (Augusta, Maine)
Sidney Kimmel Medical College (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine (Los Angeles, California)
University of Louisville School of Medicine (Louisville, Kentucky)
University of Maryland (Baltimore, Maryland)
University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, North Dakota)
University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine (Tampa, Florida)
University of Tennessee Health Sciences (Memphis, Tennessee)

The ACGME launched this second cohort of the Patient Safety Collaborative after the largely positive response from the first. Most teams from the first cohort will continue as part of an Advanced Patient Safety Collaborative this fall to further their work in engaging residents, fellows, and other clinicians in patient safety.

“The ACGME is pleased with the effectiveness of the model demonstrated in the first Pursuing Excellence Patient Safety Collaborative," said ACGME President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas J. Nasca, MD, MACP. "We look forward to expanding the opportunity to an additional 10 Sponsoring Institutions.”

Pursuing Excellence grew out of the ACGME's Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) Program. The CLER Program provides formative feedback to the nation's teaching hospitals, medical centers, health systems, and other clinical settings in the CLER Focus Areas of Patient Safety, Health Care Quality, Care Transitions, Supervision, Well-being, and Professionalism. The Pursuing Excellence Collaboratives are designed in response to opportunities identified through CLER site visit findings and practice patterns noted in the literature.

"We are already seeing a national conversation sparked by the transformative work underway through Pursuing Excellence," said ACGME Chief Sponsoring Institutions and Clinical Learning Environment Officer Kevin B. Weiss, MD. "With this next Collaborative, the ACGME and its 21 partners in this initiative welcome new findings that will help to drive culture change within clinical learning environments."

Learn more about the Pursuing Excellence Collaboratives and work to date.