The Next Accreditation System

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has implemented a new accreditation system for graduate medical education in the United States. This system, called the Next Accreditation System, focuses on more continuous monitoring of the outcomes of residency training, and for high-quality programs, less on the detailed processes of that training. This allows programs to innovate to best meet the needs of their trainees and communities. This new system also reviews the clinical learning environment at each institution sponsoring graduate medical education, focusing on professionalism, trainee supervision, duty hour and fatigue management, care transitions, and integration of residents into patient safety and health care quality. This Next Accreditation System is too new to fully assess its outcomes in better preparing residents for medical practice. Assessments of its early implementation, however, suggest we can expect such outcomes in the near future.