The EURACT Performance Agenda (EUPA)
Lisbon/Düsseldorf
EURACT launches a new document
The European Academy of Teachers in General Practice/Family Medicine (EURACT) has presented its new EURACT Performance Agenda (EUPA) to the public for the first time during the 19thWONCA Europe Conference, 2-5 July 2014, Lisbon/Portugal. During a workshop on 5 July 2014, chaired by one of the founders of EURACT, Professor Isabel Santos from Portugal, and attended by 40 colleagues from numerous European countries, participants discussed the idea behind EUPA and its content in small group work led by EUPA’s editor, Professor Stefan Wilm from Düsseldorf/Germany. A summary document of the discussions can be found on EURACT’s website.
The EURACT Performance Agenda (EUPA) is the third paper in a row following the European Definition of General Practice/Family Medicine (WONCA Europe) in 2002 identifying 6 core competencies and 11 abilities every family doctor should master, and the EURACT Educational Agenda in 2005 which provided a framework to teach the core competencies by setting learning aims and monitoring their achievement. Performance (in contrast to competence) is understood as the level of actual performance in clinical care and communication with patients in daily practice. Small groups of EURACT Council members from 40 European countries have discussed and developed EUPA over years. EUPA is a general uniform basic agenda of performance elements every GP masters in daily practice, applicable and adaptable to different countries with different systems. It deals with process and result of actual work in daily practice, not with a teaching/learning situation. EUPA discusses in depth the psychometrics and edumetrics of performance assessment. Case vignettes of abilities in GPs’ daily practice in every chapter illustrate performance and its assessment. Common assessment tools are e.g. on-site assessment by a peer and audit of medical records, making it also part of CPD.
EUPA can help to shape performance assessment activities locally in general practice/family medicine e.g. in continuing professional development cycles, re-certification/re-accreditation/licensing procedures, peer hospitation programmes or practice audit programmes in quality management. It can give orientation for self-assessment for reflective practitioners in their CPD.
The EURACT Performance Agenda (EUPA) is available as open access source on EURACT’s website or in a printed version (ISBN 978-3-943460-76-6; available from düsseldorf university press, www.dupress.de, info@dupress.de).