Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Martin Halperin.
Australia is lacking the vital data relating to current practices needed to perform a meaningful evaluation of the quality of care in general practice. This article proposes that unannounced standardised patients (USPs) represent a valuable method of measuring actual performance in general practice. Constructive debate about the use of USPs may progress its acceptance as a valid tool for performance assessment and quality improvement.
BACKGROUND: The external clinical teaching visits (ECTV) remain the primary method of monitoring registrar progress and provide valuable feedback. The unannounced standardised patient (USP) methodology may represent an innovative tool to assess registrar performance and provide feedback that could complement the current ECTV program. OBJECTIVE: This article provides an overview of current feedback processes in registrar training, presents a review of the literature on the USP as an innovative performance assessment tool, and proposes its potential application for general practice registrar training as an effective audit and feedback tool. CONCLUSION: The USP methodology has been thoroughly tested, validated and embraced by many countries. Recently, the USP tool has been described as the validated, gold standard methodology to discriminate among variations in the quality of clinical practice. Most studies have used the USP tool to assess actual performance of practising doctors, with minimal attention being given to its potential as a feedback/teaching tool. The use of the USP for this purpose represents an opportunity for further research.