BACKGROUND: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires annual surveys of residency programs. INTERVENTION: We switched from a paper-based to a web-based survey and report on the efficiency and quality improvement gains from this change. To determine the prevalence of web-based surveys, we conducted a web-based and telephone survey of 17 internal medicine residency training programs in Southern California. Fifteen programs provided data (88% response rate). RESULTS: By making the switch, our internal medicine residency program was able to save over 50 administrative hours and over 1000 pieces of paper. A total investment of $20 for the Surveymonkey.com account (Palo Alto, CA) and approximately 15 hours to migrate the survey was made. The program administrators were able to more rapidly analyze and respond to the feedback from the residents with this system. Our survey of other programs showed that of 15 programs, 12 used a web-based survey system (80%) and 3 used a paper-based system (20%). Surveymonkey.com was the most popular system used. CONCLUSIONS: We feel that the quality of response to resident feedback was enhanced by the real-time reaction to comments and assessments. Residents also appreciated the benefits of such a change. We recommend this approach to other programs that are still using paper-based surveys.
BACKGROUND: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires annual surveys of residency programs. INTERVENTION: We switched from a paper-based to a web-based survey and report on the efficiency and quality improvement gains from this change. To determine the prevalence of web-based surveys, we conducted a web-based and telephone survey of 17 internal medicine residency training programs in Southern California. Fifteen programs provided data (88% response rate). RESULTS: By making the switch, our internal medicine residency program was able to save over 50 administrative hours and over 1000 pieces of paper. A total investment of $20 for the Surveymonkey.com account (Palo Alto, CA) and approximately 15 hours to migrate the survey was made. The program administrators were able to more rapidly analyze and respond to the feedback from the residents with this system. Our survey of other programs showed that of 15 programs, 12 used a web-based survey system (80%) and 3 used a paper-based system (20%). Surveymonkey.com was the most popular system used. CONCLUSIONS: We feel that the quality of response to resident feedback was enhanced by the real-time reaction to comments and assessments. Residents also appreciated the benefits of such a change. We recommend this approach to other programs that are still using paper-based surveys.