VA Health Care: Adequancy of Resident Supervision Is Not Assured, but Plans Could Improve Oversight.

摘要

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides graduate medical education (GME) to as many as one-third of U.S. resident physicians, but oversight responsibilities spread across VA's organizational components and multiple affiliated hospitals and medical schools could allow supervision problems to go undetected or uncorrected. GAO was asked to examine VA's procedures for (1) monitoring VA medical centers' adherence to VA's requirements for resident supervision, (2) using evaluations of supervision by GME accrediting bodies and residents, and (3) using information about resident supervision drawn from VA's programs for monitoring the quality and outcomes of patient care. GAO recommends that VA ensure that VA medical centers that provide GME adopt and adhere to VAs national requirements for resident supervision and ensure that external peer review of documentation of resident supervision includes records from VAs new outpatients. VA concurred with the recommendations.