Traditionally, licensure or certification for a healthcare provider to practice has been based on written exams which emphasize knowledge rather than skills. Some clinical decision-making skills can be assessed in written form, but others cannot. A challenge of reforming preservice education to ensure competency-based training is defining whether to formally assess student/graduate skills before graduation. At issue is the number of students to be assessed and the availability of faculty to perform the assessments. In Morocco, 700 medical students graduate every year and there are 50 faculty to assess them. Each student has rotated through surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, community medicine and other rotations. How many skills should be assessed? And how to do this efficiently?
JHPIEGO has adapted Observed Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) - also called Observed Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) - to assess student skills in several evaluations. These methods use some form of simulation and, in an evaluation, allow for standardized observations of all students. Additionally, clients are protected when student competency in a skill isn’t known. JHPIEGO is also developing new approaches to increase inter-rater reliability. This presentation will discuss these assessment methods and their implications. It will also review results for key questions (how competency-based training methods affect skill retention in a preservice setting, the relationship between a provider’s experience practicing a specific skill and confidence and competence, determining acceptable performance of sentinel skills for providing FP and/or labor/delivery services). Experiences and results from programs in Morocco, Ghana, Mali, Kenya and others will illustrate these questions.
Learning Objectives: Describe the results of using a modified Observed Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) to assess performance and the implications of this approach
Keywords: Service Delivery, Reproductive Health
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employeed by JHPIEGO