Systems Thinking: Identifying Leverage Points for Achieving a Continuum of Competency-Based Health Professions Education

Abstract

Competency-based education is widely endorsed in health professions education (CBHPE) as an outcomes-focused approach to ensuring that all graduates demonstrate the competencies needed to improve patient and population health. Despite adoption of outcomes frameworks, accreditation requirements, and CBHPE tactics, interventions remain siloed within programs and training levels rather than spanning the education to practice continuum. Consequently, learners and teachers experience fragmented educational journeys that can fall short of addressing each learner’s needs for continuous learning and growth. To advance efforts toward a CBHPE continuum, this systems-informed conceptual analysis uses a systems thinking perspective to analyze leverage points, places within complex systems where small, strategic interventions can cause large-scale, lasting changes. Drawing on Meadows’ framework for understanding leverage points in complex systems, we examined barriers and opportunities to achieve a continuum and present five theoretically informed, literature-based, and expert-derived recommendations for transformation. Our analysis revealed that strategic intervention points, including paradigm shifts from ‘time-served’ to ‘competence-demonstrated’ readiness, structural changes through cross-continuum governance alignment, and process modifications via shared competency language and data systems, enable meaningful transformation beyond surface-level adjustments. Key recommendations include: (1) restructuring system architecture to enable seamless learner progression through competency committees and joint governance bodies; (2) shifting mental models to normalize time-variable progression and reconceptualize assessment as growth-supporting; (3) implementing high-impact approaches to assessment with longitudinal learner analytics; (4) changing rules and incentives to reward competency achievement; and (5) establishing continuous data-driven feedback systems. Understanding these leverage points informs targeted approaches, enabling a cohesive, coordinated, learner-centered CBHPE continuum.