What You Need to Know about EPAs
Education Management Solutions (EMS)
EMS is an industry pioneer in simulation-based solutions for healthcare training environments
The formative nature of Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) leads to assessments built on not just how students can recite summative information they’ve obtained, but how learners apply their knowledge and skills to clinical situations. One of the methods used to track progression within the competency-based assessment model is through Entrustable Professional Activities or EPAs. But what exactly are EPAs?
EPAs are a top of the funnel category that encompasses core competencies, sub competencies, and milestones that define the core professional work of a particular field or discipline. More specifically, EPAs identify the individual skills, information, and behaviors that healthcare students must deliver in a reliable and trustworthy fashion in real world practice.
By relying on EPA frameworks, instructors can assess a broad range of student abilities while setting clear expectations for learners about the skills they have mastered (or perhaps need some remediation for) during each phase of their healthcare education. This structure helps students by preparing them for future practice in a more comprehensive fashion, and aids educators by allowing them to be more agile in adjusting their instructional plan and curricula to meet student or cohort needs.
At EMS, we’ve been working to address EPA assessment and tracking with our Competency.AI platform , with a focus on how to highlight measurable improvements in the gap between student performance and program expectations. Using powerful artificial intelligence to map core competencies to curriculum, Competency.AI tracks longitudinal student performance and provides progress snapshots across key EPAs.