Created to service the developing needs of the Graduate Medical Education (GME) program at Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC), the department of GME Research & Quality Improvement is on a mission to help build a sustainable and vibrantly engaged community of medical scholars equipping, resourcing, and supporting our faculty, residents and staff with the skills and opportunities to advance a wide array of scholarly pursuits.
We believe that physician scholarship supports the growth of evidence-based medicine, practices, and medical education advances within the Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) community and ultimately adds value to patient outcomes.
Our Mission
As a team, we strive to provide continuous research and improvement opportunities for our stakeholders through an engaging, data rich environment, using innovative technology and timely access to expert support.
We work to develop a research environment and process that engages and supports GME staff, faculty, residents, and fellows to reframe research from an academic add-on to a welcomed, necessary part of everyday practice.
Our Vision
The GME Research and Quality Improvement team aims to cultivate evidence based medicine physicians who are:
Focused on making meaningful impact on GME and healthcare practices locally, nationally and internationally.
Willing and capable of appraising, producing and sharing rigorously developed evidence.
Critical Inquiry becomes part of our daily practice.
Presentations
Publications
Our Departmental Values
Building on the NGHS institutional core values, GME research values guide our responses and processes.
Research Must Matter to Our Community
We advance our knowledge of patient care through compassionate identification of the most pressing health, social and economic concerns of our constituents. This situates our research goals and evidence of scientific merit.
Intentional Focus Matters
We focus our resources and scholarship intentionally, building expertise in areas which honor our patients, our residents and the community-based focus of our health-system. Together, we will progress toward our community goals.
Perspective Matters
We strive to understand our research through the lens of all stakeholders through open dialogue, peer review, ethical recruitment of participants and consideration of research impact on our community. This acknowledgement of “knowing what we know” as a social construct enriches our research agenda.
Ethical Rigor is Critical
We focus on quality not quantity of scholarship. We pursue rigorous design and implementation as more impactful on our community than number of publications, and more advantageous to our residents as they learn foundational research skills.
Key Features
Our program is committed to developing and supporting opportunities to develop quality research based on your passion.
- Each residency and fellowship program participates in a structured, program-specific scholarly activity curriculum. These sessions provide protected time, consistent instruction, and hands-on guidance in research, quality improvement, case reports, and evidence-based medicine.
- Our multidisciplinary Research and Quality Improvement team provides individualized support in study design, data collection, and analysis. Residents and fellows are supported from initial concept through implementation, interpretation, and presentation.
- Access to the GME Research Canvas site for asynchronous mini tutorials, resources and guides.
- Access to cutting edge research software, statistician and qualitative analysis expert.
- Research mentoring program connects faculty and cross-discipline researchers in communities of practice focused on area of interest, for example healthcare disparities, critical care transitions and preventative medicine.
- Opportunities to experience full, multi-site phase two and three clinical trials.
- Full guidance and support through our IRB process and each stage of the GME research process.
- Opportunities throughout the year to submit work for publication, assisted by in-house editing and presentation coaching as needed.
- The GME Research and Quality Improvement Symposium presents an opportunity to celebrate and showcase the research and scholarly activities of NGHS investigators. Our GME residents, fellows and faculty take this opportunity to present their research through posters and podium presentations.
Curriculum/Workshop Information
Our Research and Quality Improvement Team uniquely offers dedicated, program-specific scholarly activity workshops designed to support residents and fellows in meeting ACGME and program requirements with confidence. The protected-time workshops are led by our team and provide a structured curriculum and hands-on guidance for case reports, research studies, quality improvement projects, and evidence-based medicine journal clubs. Our goal is to make scholarly activity structured, achievable, and impactful – while equipping residents and fellows with the skills they will carry into independent practice.
Research & Quality Improvement Symposium
The GME RQI team holds an annual research symposium to showcase and celebrate the work by residents and fellows on case reports, research, and quality improvement projects. There are multiple poster and podium presentation sessions, as well as a keynote speaker from the health system or the community to expand on the ways Research and Quality Improvement are essential to evidence-based practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
We have the staff to support you in addition to great tools
Graduate Medical Education at NGMC has invested in a stand-alone GME research department which provides research education, support, and oversight to all GME faculty, staff, and residents. GME Research & Quality Improvement consists of multi-faceted staff comprised of experts in research design, project management, data management, and biostatistics to support resident and fellow research and/or quality improvement projects available to assist residents/fellows from idea-generation to dissemination (e.g., presentation or publication). Additionally, we have developed program-specific workshop curriculums, providing protected time for residents/fellows to work together on projects while learning key components necessary for producing fruitful research and quality improvement projects.