News

American Board of Internal Medicine Endorses the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) Five Million Lives Patient Safety Campaign, Opens Maintenance of Certification to Campaign Data

Philadelphia, PA, December 12, 2006 – The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has formally endorsed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Five Million Lives Campaign, an aggressive patient safety initiative that aims to eliminate five million needless hospital injuries or deaths in the next two years. As part of that, ABIM has agreed to accept safety-related measurement data collected by hospitals involved in the Campaign, so that physicians actively involved in the Campaign in those hospitals can receive credit toward the practice performance requirement of Maintenance of Certification – a program of ongoing learning and performance assessment required to maintain board Certification.

"ABIM is pleased to add our voice to support for IHI’s very important work to make patient care safer and more patient-centered,” said Christine Cassel, MD, ABIM’s president and CEO. “By allowing internists to use data collected by hospitals to maintain their Board certificate, ABIM hopes to make it easier and more rewarding for physicians to actively participate in the Campaign"

ABIM has aligned its efforts to enhance quality of care with the goals of the Campaign to help accelerate improvement efforts as hospitals create and sustain reliable systems of care, and to minimize redundant data collection which adds burden to physicians’ lives, but adds no value to patient care. ABIM is committed to enhancing health care quality, and looks forward to continued work with IHI and other stakeholders to build a safe and effective health care delivery system – one that provides the high quality of medical care that every patient deserves.

About ABIM
For more than 75 years, certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has stood for the highest standard in internal medicine and its 19 subspecialties and has meant that internists have demonstrated – to their peers and to the public – that they have the clinical judgment, skills and attitudes essential for the delivery of excellent patient care. ABIM is not a membership society, but a non-profit, independent evaluation organization. Our accountability is both to the profession of medicine and to the public. ABIM is a member of the American Board of Medical Specialties. For additional updates, follow ABIM on Facebook and Twitter.