A Primer on EPA Versioning

As programs begin to implement their Competence By Design (CBD) curriculum, they gain an improved understanding of how to integrate workplace-based assessments in their clinical environment and potentially re-evaluate which tasks and contexts are essential to assess residents’ performance. This can lead to editorial, moderate and/or fundamental changes to their National Specialty EPA documents, resulting in the implementation of a new version.

Once the new EPAs have been finalized, the Royal College will communicate when the new version is to come into effect (i.e. the “effective year”). The EPAs will then be implemented for each resident cohort that is in CBD as soon as they begin a new Competency Stage (i.e. they will continue in the “old” version of EPAs until they complete their current stage of training, after which, they will transition into the new one). This is illustrated in the diagrams below.

If the learner completes EPA assessments ahead of their stage (and thus in the old version), these EPA assessments will show up under the Archived folder on their dashboard once they transition to the new EPA version (see screenshot below, for example).

Learners can click “Archived Assessments” to see a breakdown of the overall entrustment ratings for these assessments, by EPA (as shown below).

For more information about EPA versioning please read Navigating and Understanding the CBME Program Dashboard.