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Systems-Based Practice Teaching Materials

Components of the Systems-Based Practice Competency

The components in which trainees must demonstrate proficiency in this ACGME competency are:

1. Work effectively in various health care delivery settings and systems relevant to their clinical specialties
2. Coordinate patient care within the health care system relevant to their clinical specialty
3. Incorporate considerations of cost awareness and risk-benefit analysis in patient and/or population-based care as appropriate
4. Advocate for quality patient care and optimal patient care systems
5. Work in interprofessional teams to enhance patient safety and improve patient care quality
6. Participate in identifying systems errors and implementing potential systems solutions

A number of readily available resources and teaching tools are accessible through the following links.

Systems-Based Practice Web-based Educational Resources

I. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has numerous educational resources for group or individual learning related to health care improvement issues. These include the IHI Improvement Map, IHI Topics, and IHI Open School. See specific references above under “Practice-Based Learning and Improvement”.  

In addition, the IHI site hosts the following: ‘Achieving Competence Today’, a teaching resource and curriculum materials designed for educators to facilitate the teaching of Systems-Based Practice and Practice-Based Learning and Improvement, accessible on the IHI web site.

II. Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) MedEd Portal provides several online modules for teaching systems-based practice, including the following:

•     “The Structure and Funding of the U.S. Healthcare System”
•     “Coding 101”
•     “Web-Based Module to Train and Assess Competency in Systems-Based Practice”
•     “Teaching Patient Safety via a Structured Review of Medical Errors: A Novel Approach to Educating Residents about Medical Error, Disclosure, and Malpractice”
•     “The Health Care Matrix: Improving Care by Linking Outcomes to Competencies”
•     “Business of Medicine Modules”
•     “A Quality Improvement Curriculum for Internal Medicine Residents”

These and other resources accessible on the AAMC website.

III. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, hosts several resources that can be used to teach about Systems-Based Practice, including the following:

AHRQ Web M & M: Morbidity and Mortality Rounds on the Web consists of cases and commentary that lend themselves to discussions about a systems approach to improving patient care. Each module includes educational case objectives, difficult clinical cases, expert commentary and supporting references. Some include PowerPoint presentations to support the content presentation.  

Johnson JK, Miller SH, Horowitz SD: Systems-based practice: improving the safety and quality of patient care by recognizing and improving the systems in which we work.