Healthcare in the United States continues to fall short of the quality goals set forth by the Institute of Medicine and the expectations of Americans. Consider how:

• Physicians are overworked, undercompensated, and overwhelmed with information and paperwork
• Patients expect more from their physicians and feel as though they are receiving less access to medical care
• Healthcare outcomes do not measure up to those reported by other nations
• Healthcare outcomes are not measuring up to anyone's expectations

Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP)-Creates a collaborative structure for specialty societies, boards and other state and national organizations to work together, learn from one another, avoid duplication of efforts for the benefit of practicing physicians and patients they serve.

The ABMS Patient Safety Improvement Program-Developed in response to national patient safety concerns, this self-assessment module features scenarios highlighting key safety themes (e.g. medication errors, hand-offs and teamwork) that impact all medical disciplines. This module provides physicians certified by an ABMS Member Board another mechanism to fulfill part of the requirements for Maintenance of Certification (MOC).

CAHPS Clinical Groups Survey-To help certified physicians improve communication with their patients, ABMS is working with the CAHPS consortium and the National CAHPS Benchmarking Database (NCBD) to deliver this survey to ABMS' 24 Member Boards. As the primary collection instrument of CAHPS data, survey results will be submitted to the NCBD for warehousing and analysis and reported to the Member Boards and their certified physicians. It will fulfill some of the Part IV Performance Assessment requirements for MOC.

The Transition from "Re-certification" to MOC

In 2006, ABMS and its 24 Member Boards transitioned all diplomates to a continuous Maintenance of Certification process. This change represents a shift from a "snapshot" approach to evaluation-every six to 10 years-to a continuous process for lifelong learning and self-assessment to keep skills and knowledge current in a rapidly changing practice environment.

MOC delivers more infl uence; better clinical outcomes for patients; efficiency in your practice; fewer hassles and less redundant paperwork. In short, MOC signals your leadership in the national movement for healthcare quality to patients, providers, insurers and quality organizations.

To find out the requirements for physician certification associated with a specific board, call the board directly. A listing of contact information for the ABMS Member Boards is available on this Web site.

A complete listing of all general specialty and subspecialty certificates recognized by the ABMS Member Boards is also available on this Web site.