In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a report that highlighted the inadequacies of health care professional training and assessment of ongoing proficiency to enhance patient care and safety (IOM 2001). The IOM’s subsequent Health Professions Education Summit (HPES) then identified objectives for educational reform for the following health professionals in the United States: nurses, pharmacists, physician assistants, physicians, and allied health professionals, including, for example, psychologists, counselors, and social workers (IOM HPES 2003b). The IOM thereby identified a set of simple, core competencies that all health clinicians should possess, regardless of their discipline, to meet the needs of the twenty-first-century health care system (p. 45). These included the ability to:
- Provide patient-centered care
- Work in interdisciplinary teams
- Employ evidence-based practice
- Apply quality improvement
- Use information technology (IOM 2003a, p. 45)
Since then, educational reform related to competencies has made significant advances. In fact, the above-mentioned competencies are now often considered a foundation for workforce development. They provide indicators that are necessary to develop effective curriculum for worker training, orientation and continued staff development. They also provide indicators to inform workers and their supervisors of job performance requirements. For example, the utilization of competencies in the training of Direct Service Workers (DSW) reinforces shared values of direct service workers’ skills and growth (Hoge et al. 2008; Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) 2013, p. 13).
Maheu, M., Drude, K., Hertlein, K., Wall, K., Long, R., Luoma, T., Hilty, D. (2018). Correction to:An interprofessional framework for telebehavioral competencies. Journal for Technology in Behavioral Science, 3(2), 108-140.