The current state of core competency assessment in emergency medicine and a future research agenda: recommendations of the working group on assessment of observable learner performance.

In 2012, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) introduced the Next Accreditation System (NAS) for residency program accreditation. With implementation of the NAS, residents are assessed according to a series of new emergency medicine (EM)-specific performance milestones, and the frequency of assessment reporting is increased. These changes are driving the development of new assessment tools for the NAS that can be feasibly implemented by EM residency programs and that produce valid and reliable assessment data. This article summarizes the recommendations of the writing group on assessment of observable learner performance at the 2012 Academic Emergency Medicine consensus conference on education research in EM that took place on May 9, 2012, in Chicago, Illinois. The authors define an agenda for future assessment tool research and development that was arrived at by consensus during the conference.