Medical education programs accreditation: comparison of results between evaluation teams

Abstract

Introduction: In Mexico, the Mexican Council for the Accreditation of Medical Education A.C. (COMAEM, by its acronym in Spanish) is in charge of the accreditation of medical education programs taught by medical schools and for this it relies on two teams, the Evaluation Team (ET) and the Pre-determination Team (PT).

Objective: To compare the results of the accreditation process of medical schools and faculties carried out by the ETs and PTs, which establishes the COMAEM accreditation instrument.

Method: The results of 39 educational programs of Mexican medical schools and colleges accredited by COMAEM between 2019 and 2022 were analyzed. A database provided by COMAEM was used and a descriptive analysis was carried out with measures of central tendency and dispersion to compare the evaluation scores assigned by the ET and PT according to different variables. Student’s t-test was applied for independent samples in order to identify whether there were significant differences.

Results: The scores assigned by the ETs and the PTs during the accreditation processes of 39 medical educational programs were similar for global and total results and for the different types of indicators; basic, essential and quality, with some differences that were not statistically significant. Better scores and greater homogeneity were found among the programs for the basic and essential indicators than for the quality ones, which also had a greater dispersion, which suggests a greater maturity of the schools to comply with the basic and essential indicators than with the quality indicators.

Conclusions: The competence of both teams is similar and their experience, interpretation of the accreditation standards and the impartiality to carry it out provide sufficient reliability to the accreditation carried out by COMAEM and is a guarantee for medical schools.