Developing a community of practice for quality assurance within healthcare assessment.

Background: The Australian Collaboration for Clinical Assessment in Medicine (ACCLAiM) is a voluntary assessment consortium, involving medical schools nationwide. The aims of ACCLAiM are to benchmark student clinical assessment outcomes and to provide quality assurance (QA) of exit-level Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCEs). This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the ACCLAiM QA process for optimising OSCE delivery standards at the member schools using a Community of Practice (CoP) framework.

Methods: A mixed methods sequential explanatory design, involving an online questionnaire and subsequent focus group discussions, was utilised. Questionnaire responses were analysed using descriptive statistics, while thematic analysis was employed for the qualitative data.

Results: Data analysis revealed that school-specific OSCE practices had evolved based on QA feedback, as well as a collaborative sharing of expertise consistent with a CoP model. Extending beyond a QA working group for accountability and demonstration of minimum standards, participation in ACCLAiM QA processes is creating a sustainable socio-academic network focused on quality improvement.

Conclusion: Collaborative QA in clinical assessment creates opportunities for optimising standards in OSCE processes and sharing of resources for OSCE assessments. It also allows for professional development and scholarly engagement in assessment research. These benefits contribute to the existence of an emergent CoP model.