The Power of Collaboration: Experiences From the Educational Innovations Project and Implications for the Next Accreditation System

The Internal Medicine Educational Innovations Project (EIP) is a 10-year pilot project for innovating in accreditation, which involves annual reporting of information and less-restrictive requirements for a group of high-performing programs. The EIP program directors' experiences offer insight into the benefits and challenges of innovative approaches to accreditation as the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education transitions to the Next Accreditation System. We assessed participating program directors' perceptions of the EIP at the midpoint of the project's 10-year life span. We conducted telephone interviews with 15 of 18 current EIP programs (83% response rate) using a 19-item, open-ended, structured survey. Emerging themes were identified with content analysis. Respondents identified a number of the benefits from the EIP, most prominent among them, collaboration between programs (87%, 13 of 15) and culture change around quality improvement (47%, 7 of 15). The greatest benefit for residents was training in quality improvement methods (53%, 8 of 15), enhancing those residents' ability to become change agents in their future careers. Although the requirement for annual data reporting was identified by 60% (9 of 15) of program directors as the biggest challenge, respondents also considered it an important element for achieving progress on innovations. Program directors unanimously reported their ability to sustain innovation projects beyond the 10-year participation in EIP. The work of EIP was not viewed as "more work," but as "different work," which created a new mindset of continuous quality improvement in residency training. Lessons learned offer insight into the value of collaboration and opportunities to use accreditation to foster innovation.