Continuous quality improvement in an accreditation system for undergraduate medical education: Benefits and challenges*

AbstractBackground: Accreditation reviews of medical schools typically occur at fixed intervals and result in a summative judgment about compliance with predefined process and outcome standards. However, reviews that only occur periodically may not be optimal for ensuring prompt identification of and remediation of problem areas.Aims: To identify the factors that affect the ability to implement a continuous quality improvement (CQI) process for the interval review of accreditation standards.Methods: Case examples from the United States, Canada, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, were collected and analyzed to determine the strengths and challenges of the CQI processes implemented by a national association of medical schools and several medical school accrediting bodies. The CQI process at a single medical school also was reviewed.Results: A functional CQI process should be focused directly on accreditation standards so as to result in the improvement of educational quality and outcomes, be feasible to impl...