Evaluation of Resident Surveillance of Pediatric Patient Developmental Status at the Two Month Preventive Care Visit

Many children in the United States have developmental or behavioral disabilities. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently published a policy statement outlining recommendations for developmental surveillance and screening of infants and young children. One of the Academy's recommendations was for inclusion of developmental surveillance during all preventive care visits. The five components of developmental surveillance include elicitation and attendance to parental concerns, maintenance of the developmental history, observation of the child through physical and developmental examinations, identification of risk and protective factors, and documentation of surveillance findings and process (referral, follow-up, etc.).

As a result of concerns expressed by the public regarding accountability in medical education and health care, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the American Board of Medical Specialties mandated that training programs shift to a competency based assessment system. The focus of this study will be to assess the impact of performance feedback (based upon video recorded observation) coupled with an educational module on resident demonstration of competency in regard to the physical and developmental examinations component of developmental surveillance of infants at the two month preventive care visit.