Hospitals & Health Systems
Hospital and health system leadership can use ABIM's Maintenance of Certification program to drive quality improvement within their organizations, engaging physicians in quality improvement and enhance relationships with physicians by reducing redundancy.
- Why Work With ABIM
- How to Work With ABIM
- The Importance of Board Certification
- The Importance of Maintenance of Certification
- Contact ABIM to Help Reach Your Quality Improvement Goals
Why Work With ABIM
Your organization is busy and faces many challenges. ABIM can help your efforts in two areas – to improve quality and to enhance relationships with your staff physicians. This can happen in one easy step. Physicians are probably already collecting information for reporting to CMS/JC. Encourage them to also use the same data to complete the ABIM PIMsm Practice Improvement Module for Hospital-Based Patient Care, which completes a requirement for your physicians within the ABIM Maintenance of Certification program. PIMs provide an off-the-shelf experience in practice measurement and quality improvement that will help your physicians to reduce reporting redundancy while enhancing your quality improvement efforts.
TopHow to Work With ABIM
ABIM's Maintenance of Certification program is uniquely able to align a physician's professional commitment of measurement and improvement to the overall quality improvement efforts within his or her organization. For example, a number of health plans are now rewarding physicians for their participation in Maintenance of Certification by offering:
- Financial rewards in pay-for-performance programs
- Special recognition in provider directories
- Inclusion in quality-tiered networks
Any health care organization, including but not limited to health plans, hospitals and health systems, can use ABIM's Maintenance of Certification program to foster a community of continuous learning and quality improvement.
To set up a pilot program or to find out how ABIM can help your organization reach its quality improvement goals, call 800-441-ABIM, ext. 3567 or QualityImprovement@abim.org.
TopThe Importance of Board Certification
Board Certification is a meaningful indicator that a doctor has the knowledge, experience, and skills necessary to provide high quality patient care.
Certification requirements include:
- Completion of the required pre-doctoral medical education
- Completion of required training in an accredited residency program
- Assessment and documentation of individual performance from the residency training director or from the chief of service in the hospital where the specialist practices
- An unrestricted license to practice medicine
- Passing a secure, computer-based Certification examination
Although board certification is voluntary, the ABIM certificate is recognized throughout the world as signifying excellence in the practice of internal medicine and its subspecialties. Board-certified internists and subspecialists have demonstrated the ability and commitment to lifelong learning, which is necessary to provide the high quality care that every patient deserves. Approximately one out of three physicians nationwide is certified by ABIM.
TopThe Importance of Maintenance of Certification
In health care, practice does not necessarily make perfect. Although it makes sense that more experienced doctors would have accumulated greater knowledge and skill, research findings suggest that physician performance declines over time. This could mean that experience in medicine may make doctors expert at old ways of doing things – and lead to lower, not higher, quality care.
Medicine changes rapidly, and it has become essential for doctors to stay current in the diagnosis and treatment of patients in order to provide high quality care. By participating in ABIM's Maintenance of Certification program, doctors can demonstrate their commitment to ongoing learning and can effectively apply their enhanced knowledge and skills in their practice.
Most internists voluntarily seek board Certification, which in the past was good for a lifetime. Doctors certified after 1990 must recertify – every ten years – but those certified before that date are not required to do so. Those who do not recertify may have standards of practice that do not reflect current recommendations. Increasing numbers of internists with lifetime certificates voluntarily recertify, recognizing the importance and value of ongoing learning.
TopContact ABIM to Help Reach Your Quality Improvement Goals
To set up a pilot program or to find out how ABIM can help your organization reach its quality improvement goals, call 1-800-441-ABIM, ext. 3567 or send an e-mail to QualityImprovement@abim.org.
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