Workplace-based assessment
Assessing physician performance in real clinical settings.
What is workplace-based assessment?
Workplace-based assessment (WBA) is an approach used to assess physicians in authentic clinical settings as they provide care to patients. Through WBA, assessors observe candidates as they practise, gathering direct and indirect observations over time to understand how they manage patient care, communicate with patients and colleagues, and make clinical decisions. Guided by the principles of competency-based assessment, WBA is a flexible and authentic approach that complements the MCC’s existing assessment methods, like written and simulated examinations. Together, these approaches support fair and defensible licensure decisions and help ensure physicians are ready to provide safe, quality care in Canada.
Why is the MCC expanding its workplace-based assessment offerings?
The MCC is expanding its WBA offer to strengthen how readiness for practice is evaluated, with a focus on using the right assessment tool at the right point in a physician’s journey. While traditional high-stakes examinations provide a standardized, point-in-time measure of knowledge and skills, WBA complements these approaches by assessing performance over time in authentic clinical settings.
Through WBA, trained assessors, who are experienced physicians themselves, review how candidates diagnose and manage patient care, communicate with patients and colleagues, demonstrate professionalism, and make clinical decisions. Looking at performance across many clinical encounters helps build a more robust and reliable understanding of a physician’s competencies. It also allows assessors to evaluate important aspects of medical practice that are difficult to measure through traditional exams, such as teamwork, adaptability, and clinical judgment in complex situations.
WBA will help provinces and regulators make defensible, fair, and consistent decisions when licensing physicians for practice.
“Not all physician competencies can be assessed with high-stakes examinations. As the assessment landscape evolves, WBA observations of clinical work in authentic settings means regulators have more data points on each candidate, enabling them to make better, more defensible decisions about who is ready to practise safely in Canada.”
Dr. Jason R. Frank
Director, Competency-based assessment, MCC
How does the MCC enable and support workplace-based assessment?
The MCC supports safe, accessible patient care by assessing physicians and validating their medical credentials. It also serves as the steward of the National Assessment Collaboration (NAC) Practice-Ready Assessment (PRA) framework in partnership with provincial PRA programs. These programs provide an accelerated pathway to licensure for internationally trained physicians by assessing their performance in real clinical environments. Applying a WBA approach enables PRA programs to make consistent and defensible decisions about physicians’ readiness for independent practice.
Led by Dr. Jason Frank, Director of Competency-based assessment, the MCC has developed a comprehensive WBA ecosystem to support adoption across multiple settings, with an initial focus on PRA programs. This ecosystem—comprised of interconnected and reinforcing components—includes rigorous assessor training, standardized assessment tools, enabling technologies, and other key resources.
Several PRA and specialty assessment programs across Canada have already adopted elements of this ecosystem.