1.       Background

Through Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand, the 17 medical schools in Australia have agreed on a minimum data set to be collected about medical students commencing a Medical program from 2006 onwards. This data collection project is known as the Medical Schools Outcomes Database (MSOD) and Longitudinal Tracking Project.

This project aims to initiate a national process to collect reliable demographic, educational and career intention data on medical students across all Medical Schools, and to store the data in a national database that will provide the basis for short and long-term monitoring and reporting on outcomes of medical education programs.

The project is funded by the Australian Government, through the Department of Health & Ageing (DoHA).

The MSOD project grew out of discussions between Medical Deans (previously known as Committee of Deans of Australian Medical Schools, CDAMS) and DoHA about the outcomes of rural programs such as the RUSC program, Rural Clinical Schools, University Departments of Rural Health and others. The project was divided into two distinct stages, in which Stage 1 (April 2004 – June 2005) aimed to:

• develop a nationally accepted approach across medical schools to the collection of student data;

• develop an agreed minimum data set to be adopted by all medical schools, and nationally consistent definitions for key terms and concepts and

• design, develop and pilot a national database to house the data collected and which will provide a reliable data source for medical schools and the Commonwealth for internal and external reporting requirements on the outcomes of education programs

A full report of the project’s Stage 1 achievements is available on request.

2.       The Significance and Expected Benefits of the Project

This project has both national and international significance.  Considerable resources have been devoted in Australia to provide medical education experiences for students in areas of workforce need.  There has also been an unprecedented period of change and reform of medical courses with four, five and six year models in operation.  As yet there is little evaluative information and few research findings on the effects of such changes.  One of the reasons for this is the very real difficulty in tracking students in and after medical school. 

There is a unique opportunity in this project to develop a national approach to this issue involving the cooperation of the 17 existing (and any future) medical schools through Medical Deans with support from the Commonwealth.  Thus Australian medical educators will be able to assess the effects of the educational reforms and workforce-influenced initiatives and make a contribution to both the national and international literature. 

Education programs must have an evaluation phase as an integral and expected part of their operations.  In this, medical schools and the Commonwealth government have joint responsibility for evaluating the outcomes of educational programs aimed at influencing the career decision-making of medical students.  One of the main purposes of this project is therefore to provide reliable evidence of the long-term outcomes of medical education programs with particular reference to medical workforce outcomes, such as rural education, training and practice.

In the intervening period, it has become apparent that this quantitative, research-driven approach has direct application to the needs of medical workforce planning.  The release in 2004 of the National Health Workforce Strategy Framework (NHWSF) focussed attention across the health and health education sectors on the need for a more coordinated approach to workforce planning underpinned by accurate information on all stages of medical education and training. At their recent meeting, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) endorsed the NHWSF as a result of the Productivity Commission’s review of the Australian Health Workforce. 

Medical Deans and the Project’s Management Committee and Stakeholder Advisory Committee believe that both the national database, operating at the undergraduate education level, and the longitudinal tracking process have the potential to become valuable tools for medical workforce planning.  The longitudinal tracking process is a unique opportunity to create closer linkages and collaboration between the undergraduate, postgraduate, vocational and continuing education levels, and to marry those educational contexts to health workforce needs. 

3.       Stage 1 Achievements

In 2005, six Medical Schools (i.e. University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, Flinders University, Griffith University, University of Melbourne and Monash University) participated in the pilot stage of the MSOD Project, trialling an entry questionnaire designed to collect demographic and future intentions data from commencing Medical Students. This pilot was successfully approved by the Human Research Ethics Committees at each of the six participating Universities. The aim of the pilot phase of the project was to (i) trial an entry questionnaire;(ii) design and test a database; (iii) consolidate and embed the MSOD Project at the national level and within Medical Schools and (iv) to streamline  resources at the Medical Schools to meet requirements to report to federal funding bodies.

In summary, Stage 1 of the Project has:

• Audited all medical schools for current data collection/ storage mechanisms and data sets;

• Developed a nationally agreed minimum data set and definitions to provide the basic database framework;

• Designed a national database as a central facility and piloted the collection of demographic and identifying data;

• Implemented a highly productive national workshop, bringing together over 60 staff and students from the (then) 12 operating and 3 planned medical schools, plus invited representatives of relevant

• stakeholder organisations.  Professor Howard Rabinowitz[1],  (Jefferson Medical College, Pennsylvania, US) was a keynote speaker at the workshop and continues to act in an expert advisory role for the project;

• Established the basis for a network of staff within medical schools to be responsible for the (i) management and administration of a national data collection process; (ii) ethics approval applications, and (iii) further development and implementation of the database;

• Consulted extensively with a wide range of people representing diverse stakeholder groups and initiated valuable links with external organisations;

• Established the foundations for a Stage 2 to further develop the database for national operation and to identify and develop a longitudinal tracking process that utilises the national database in order to evaluate outcomes of rural programs and medical education more broadly, assist in medical workforce planning, and provide a national research resource.

3a.    National Database

The National Database is being constructed in order to house, process and provide remote access to the data collected from the Commencing Medical Students Questionnaire and from the Medical Schools Template via an online web application.

The MSOD Project involved appointing an IT consultant or team with responsibility for design and implementation of the database and web application. A tendering process was undertaken and Monash University was the successful applicant. The Monash IT Team is currently constructing the database and web applications which are hosted at Monash University, Clayton, Victoria. The IT team is also responsible for advising the MSOD Management Committee and Medical Deans on relevant management, maintenance, security and development issues.  

The National Database is a server-based application accessed using a web-browser (eg. Internet Explorer or Netscape) that is installed as standard with all Windows or Macintosh operating systems. Figure 1 provides a schematic representation of the national database and the data collection processes.

5.       Organisations Involved in the Project

The project is a collaboration of the following 10 organisations:

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