The American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (ABOS) and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) have collaborated on a new integrated platform in which orthopaedic surgery residents will submit their ABOS KSB surgical skills and professional behavior assessment requests and log cases for the ACGME’s Case Log System at the same time; this will allow residents to simultaneously log a case into the ACGME Case Log System and request a Surgical Skills Assessment for the ABOS KSB Program. Orthopaedic surgery residents will log all cases for the ACGME in the new ABOS KSB+ app or web portal. All ACGME-accredited orthopaedic surgery residency programs will be required by the ABOS to participate in the ABOS KSB Program starting July 1, 2025.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, if there are residents who wish to be ABOS Examination Candidates. Any resident that chooses to apply for an ABOS Part I (Written) Examination administered on or after July 2026, will be required to participate in the ABOS KSB Program starting July 1, 2025.
Yes, if they wish to sit for the ABOS Part I Examination candidate. Any resident that chooses to apply for an ABOS Part I (Written) Examination administered on or after July 2026, will need to participate in the ABOS KSB Program starting July 1, 2025.
Residents will benefit from the value of the real-time, valuable, concise feedback that is provided by the ABOS KSB Program.
Deficits in completed assessments from a PGY 2, PGY3, or PGY 4 year should be made up the next year if at all possible.
The ABOS recognizes that the annual requirements for surgical skills and professional behavior assessments will be monitored by each program individually. The intent of this program is to allow for continuous assessment of resident performance and to determine whether a resident has shown the appropriate knowledge, skills, and behavior to move onto the next PGY year in training. It is highly recommended that a minimum of 80 skills assessments and 6 behavior assessments be completed each year to provide a balanced assessment. It is strongly discouraged to allow any one PGY year in training to heavily support the mandated requirements to sit for the ABOS Part I Examination.
Orthopaedic residents who fail to meet the requirements to take the ABOS Part I Examination due to insufficient numbers of completed ABOS KSB assessments may reapply to take the ABOS Part I Examination the following year. They must complete the ABOS KSB requirements during their fellowship year or during their 1st year in practice.
The cost of the program (assessment tool development, electronic registration and data analysis and feedback) is borne by the ABOS. There is no cost to programs or residents other than time spent in registration and assessment.
This program is mandated. There is no cost to the program or resident aside from time spent in registration and assessment.
The individual Orthopaedic Resident and Program Director will receive a scorecard documenting resident progress towards competency in essential orthopaedic knowledge, skills, and professional behaviors. This information will provide useful data for the resident’s self-directed learning and for the program’s Core Competency Committee’s documentation of resident progress. In addition, it will identify specific areas of strength and those requiring improvement throughout all years of education. It also provides a roadmap to the program and learner in defining skills, behaviors, and knowledge that would be considered essential for the independent practice of orthopaedic surgery. This will likely result in a more focused and efficient educational experience and assist the Program Director in making useful resident assignments.
The ABOS and ACGME have worked together so that the ABOS KSB Program will be the platform for residents to enter all ACGME Case Logs. ACGME Case entry will be done via the new ABOS KSB+ app or web portal.
No. The ABOS is proud to announce this exciting collaboration with the ACGME that integrates ACGME Case Log entry into the new ABOS KSB+ web portal and mobile app. In one place, orthopaedic surgery residents can now enter cases for their Case Logs as required by the ACGME and also easily request an ABOS KSB Surgical Skills Assessment. Residents participating in the ABOS KSB Program will log all of their ACGME Case Log cases via the ABOS app or web portal moving forward.
Yes, it is strongly recommended. Orthopaedic surgery residents will log all their ACGME Case Log cases via the new ABOS KSB+ app or Web Portal and this will lead to electronic transmission to the ACGME System. All cases must be logged, not just cases that a resident is submitting for an ABOS KSB Surgical Skills assessment. An orthopaedic residency program must be onboarded to the ABOS KSB Program to have residents receive login credentials to use the new ABOS KSB+ app and web portal. Program directors, program coordinators, and residents will still have access to the ACGME Accreditation Data System (ADS) to review case log reports and monitor progress, as necessary.
Programs will continue to use the ACGME ADS Case Log System to review case log entry and reports for their residency program.
Yes, the ACGME is changing the way CPT codes count for Case Logs and multiple codes will be able to be entered for a single patient.
The ABOS has designed, studied, and provided this comprehensive evaluation system. The ABOS believes that this integration is uniquely capable of evaluating residents’ progress towards competency. The ABOS KSB program will provide reliable and useful data but is not specifically designed to replace current systems that the program may find of value.
Core to the mission of the ABOS is to protect the public by establishing high standards of resident education and postgraduate physician performance. In working with partners in the AAOS, ACGME, and ARCOS, the ABOS KSB Program is designed to provide valid standards in essential orthopaedic knowledge, surgical skills, and professional behavior. Requirements for initial certification have included certain time-based resident rotation requirements, an attestation by the Program Director of competency at the completion of residency, and a single high stakes multiple choice examination following residency. Participation in a validated program collecting multiple formative and summative assessments throughout residency will provide better information for Orthopaedic Residents, Program Directors, Coordinators, and the ABOS.
The data is protected and will be utilized by programs during a resident’s tenure much like other evaluation information that is collected by programs. At that point, the data will be deidentified and only utilized in that form.
Consistent with ACGME guidelines, the Program Chair and Program Director retain full discretion on the content, evaluation, and length of an individual resident’s education.
The Program Director and Chair will retain ultimate decision making regarding resident performance and the length of training. The information gathered from the ABOS KSB Program will assist in that decision making.
The data is not intended for this purpose. The ABOS would strongly advise against the use of this data for any such purpose.
As of July 1, 2025, participation requirements must be met. Summative standards utilized as a component of initial certification may be defined by the ABOS only after sufficient data is obtained to assure validity of the assessment tools and the results obtained. In other words, the ABOS may at some point in the future require that a candidate for initial ABOS Board Certification attain yet to be defined levels of achievement in the areas of procedural skills, medical knowledge, and behavior skills using validated assessment tools.
The data is owned by the ABOS. It will be de-identified upon successful initial Board Certification of the candidate. De-identified data will be securely stored by the ABOS. The ACGME Case Log data are owned by the ACGME.
This data is not to be used for physician hiring nor credentialing. It will not be shared by the ABOS with credentialing organizations.
Data will be made available to Program Directors regarding participation of their program’s attending physicians when sufficient data is available to draw comparative conclusions. This data may include comparisons between assessors and between given time points and residents with respect to the same assessor. This data may ultimately assist in faculty evaluation but will be used at the sole discretion of the Program Director.
In the case of significant complication, evaluation of resident performance should be made at the discretion of the Faculty Member.
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