Workplace Based Assessment - an award winning program

An innovative program designed by Hunter New England Health's Centre for Medical Professional Development has won a 2011 Premier's Public Sector Award for 'Innovation in front-line delivery'.

The workplace based assessment for international medical graduates program is the first of its kind where graduates seeking certification through the Australian Medical Council (AMC) standard pathway are assessed at the local level.

The program, in part, addresses an issue for health services across the nation - the challenge of building a sustainable workforce that addresses the underlying doctor shortage, reflects our increasingly diverse community and streamlines the pathway to employment for overseas trained doctors.

Director, Professor Kichu Nair, says workplace-based assessment allows eligible international medical graduates (IMGs) to complete their clinical assessment in the workplace setting.

“This addresses one of the shortcomings of the traditional pathway which fails to provide adequate orientation to our culture or clinical environment.

“This gap may place them and their patients at greater risk because it doesn’t provide the right environment to identify and address performance issues.

“Our program addresses both the real and perceived risk by testing performance in everyday clinical practice,” he said.

Now in its second year, the program has become a nationwide benchmark for health services, medical schools, colleges and universities.

Forty-nine international medical graduates have successfully completed the program with another 19 currently enrolled.

Professor Nair says the program has boosted the Hunter New England Local Health District’s profile which can only help in the race to attract and retain overseas doctors who make up a quarter of the HNE Health medical workforce.

“The traditional pathway to get a place in the AMC examination can take up to two years, while our complete assessment takes only six months.

“Moreover, our program checks the doctors’ performance at the workplace,” he said.

The program has also won:

• 2011 NSW Ministry of Health Award
• 2011 NSW Ministry of Health Director General’s Innovation Award
• 2011 Hunter New England Health Quality Award for 'Building the Health Workforce'