OBJECTIVE to develop and validate national competency standards for midwives in Australia. This study was part of a commissioned national research project to articulate the scope of practice of Australian midwives and to develop national competency standards to assist midwives to deliver safe and competent midwifery care. DESIGN a multi-method, staged approach was used to collect data through...

BACKGROUND Cultural competency can be understood as those learned skills which help us understand cultural differences and ease communication between people who have different ways of understanding health, sickness and the body. Recently, medical schools have begun to recognise a need for cultural competency training. However, few reports have been published that articulate and evaluate cultura...

The use of competency systems to evaluate, reward, and promote managers has become commonplace in large organizations in recent years. Yet despite their popularity, there is scant evidence that competency systems increase managerial effectiveness and improve organizational performance. We first analyze the individual-level determinants of progression within a competency system and the links of ...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a prototype ontology-based application that has been developed for competency management and learning paths. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides an overview of competency management and related work in this area, a description of the competency ontology, and a functional and architectural analysis. Findings – The paper provides info...

Although competency-based education is well established in health care education, research shows that the competencies do not always match the reality of clinical workplaces. Therefore, there is a need to design feasible and evidence-based competency frameworks that fit the workplace reality. This theoretical paper outlines a competency-based framework, designed to facilitate learning, assessme...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS We hypothesized that personal characteristics of residents may affect how well competency is attained in a surgical residency. To this end, we examined two concepts of global trait emotional intelligence and learner autonomy profile and their factor relationship with competency outcomes in a residency program in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery. STUDY DESIGN A cohort...

OBJECTIVES In the Model of the Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine (EM), bedside ultrasound (US) is listed as one of the essential procedural skills. EM milestones released by Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and American Board of Emergency Medicine require residents to demonstrate competency in bedside US. The purpose of this study was to assess the current methods used...

BACKGROUND Preparing health workers to confront the HIV/AIDS epidemic is an urgent challenge in Haiti, where the HIV prevalence rate is 2.2% and approximately 10 100 people are taking antiretroviral treatment. There is a critical shortage of doctors in Haiti, leaving nurses as the primary care providers for much of the population. Haiti's approximately 1000 nurses play a leading role in HIV/AID...