Connecting medical education to patient outcomes: The promise of contribution analysis.

This article presents a promising program evaluation approach, contribution analysis, which can be used to demonstrate the link between medical education programs and patient outcomes. Contribution analysis is a theory-based evaluation approach. It views programs as a part of causal packages that work together with other factors, interventions, and influences to bring about changes in specific outcomes. Although this approach is well suited for evaluating medical education programs, it has not yet been used in this area.