Dr. Sheree Aston and Dr. David Dickter 

As part of a five-year project with the California Geriatric Education Center at UCLA, and funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Western University of Health Sciences developed the Ambulatory Team Observed Structured Clinical Evaluation (ATOSCE). 

This activity has proven useful for training and/or individual evaluation as it consists of two simulated patient encounters in an ambulatory (outpatient) care setting. For the project, second- and third-year graduate health professions students participated in realistic scenarios involving a visit with an in-person patient/caregiver and telephone follow-up with other health providers. 

Our development was guided by the need for ambulatory care scenarios and the ability to assess individual performance within a collaborative care setting. This presentation will provide examples from the ATOSCE performance assessment tool, reliability findings and preliminary findings of performance levels among groups of students. As part of the HRSA grant, a follow-up toolkit will be made available for interested educators and researchers.