| 25 Sep 2009 |
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Federation of State Medical Boards Names New President and CEO
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) announced today that Humayun J. Chaudhry, D.O., M.S., FACP, FACOI, has been named the organization’s new President and Chief Executive Officer. The FSMB is a national not-for-profit organization representing the 70 state medical boards of the United States. Dr. Chaudhry will assume leadership of the FSMB in October.
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| 23 Sep 2009 |
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Primary Care Physician Shortages Can Be Traced Largely to Pipeline Issues, Says FP
The nation's primary care physician residency programs are plagued by a lack of interest, support and funding. This situation, in turn, is helping to drive the nation's chronic shortage of primary care physicians, said the chair of the Council on Graduate Medical Education, or COGME, who spoke before the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee, or MedPAC, here on Sept. 18.
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| 23 Sep 2009 |
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Both Distress And Fatigue Impact Resident Physician Errors, Study Finds
ScienceDaily (Sep. 23, 2009) — Mayo Clinic researchers report that distress and fatigue among medical residents are independent contributors to self-perceived medical errors. The findings appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
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| 21 Sep 2009 |
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When is conduct reportable? National Practitioner Data Bank takes complaints from hospitals about physicians
The peer review process is not black and white, which raises questions on reportability. And once a report is made, it's hard to undo the damage.
In an effort to promote patient safety across state lines, the National Practitioner Data Bank was created to give hospitals a snapshot of any issues with a physician's history before credentialing. The idea behind the repository was to streamline a patchwork of state laws governing the reportability of adverse actions against a doctor's privileges.
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| 14 Sep 2009 |
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Digital tools let doctors see patients via Internet
Thanks to factors including a looming physician shortage, the health care reform debate and the increasing willingness of insurance companies to pay for the practice, telehealth is on the verge of becoming routine.
In the near future you could be connected by video to a specialist dozens or hundreds of miles away. Consider something as mundane as a skin rash. If your primary care doctor thinks she needs outside expertise, she can use digital diagnostic tools to generate high-resolution images of the rash and beam them to a dermatologist in another office for rapid diagnosis.
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| 11 Jun 2009 |
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Warning Signs of a Decline in a Physician's Performance
Over the past decade there has been heightened social concern about medical errors and physician competence. The medical boards of state governments have been under pressure to more rigorously evaluate physician performance and take disciplinary action. California is no exception, and the Medical Board of California (MBC — www.medbd.ca.gov) has been increasingly active in physician discipline. The UCSD Physician Assessment and Clinical Education (PACE) Program provides comprehensive clinical competency assessment services for physicians in need and delivers remedial education for selected deficiencies. While the majority of our referrals come from the MBC, we also receive referrals from hospitals, insurance carriers and other state medical boards. Since its inception in 1996, more than 1,000 physicians have participated in the PACE Program, and we currently assess more than 150 physicians a year.
Over the years, we observed a significant number of physicians exhibiting particular patterns of behavior that led to subsequent lapses in judgment and/or clinical performance, culminating in disciplinary action. We also noted that many of these participants had been competent physicians with long-standing, solid careers prior to these behavioral changes. We offer these warning signs so that healthcare professionals may identify early behavioral changes in colleagues and aid in preventing potential misconduct and harm to patients. (More..)
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| 15 May 2009 |
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Four Tips for Hospitalist Retention
With so much effort focused on the recruitment process, it’s easy to relax after you’ve hired a candidate. But the process is just beginning, and now it must continue as a retention strategy. The nature of hospital medicine lends itself to high physician turnover. Without an assigned patient base, an office and office staff to worry about, a hospitalist can consider changing positions more easily than primary care physicians.
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| 11 May 2009 |
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More Advanced Practitioners On the Horizon
Medical organizations are increasing the number of advanced practitioners (PAs, NPs, and certified registered nurse anesthetists) on staff to support physicians, according to the Cejka Search and the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) "2008 Physician Retention Survey,"released on March 2.
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| 7 May 2009 |
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Physician Re-Entry Becoming Larger Issue as Practice Landscape Changes
With a physician shortage looming, healthcare leaders are increasingly focusing on physician re-entry. The hope is that by helping physicians who have retired or otherwise left practice brush up on their clinical skills and re-enter the workforce, the industry might slow the bleeding.
However, few physician-reentry programs exist, and not all state medical boards agree on what is required to determine a physician's competence.
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| 17 Mar 2009 |
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Device Trains Novice Doctors
Do-overs typically aren't an option on the operating table, doctors say, particularly when it comes to weak or extremely sick patients. But a new training method, developed by medical device-maker Medtronic Inc., allows novice physicians a chance to practice complicated surgical procedures on sensitive organs, such as the heart and brain, in virtual reality.
The idea behind the technology is similar to that used by the airlines to train new pilots - instead of sending trainees into planes loaded with passengers, the rookies first practice in simulators that mimic reality.
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| 26 Sep 2008 |
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Medical Simulation Corporation and the American Board of Internal Medicine Introduce New Simulation for Physician Assessment/Evaluation
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| 18 Aug 2008 |
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Hospital errors made public
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| 18 Aug 2008 |
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List of medical errors aims to limit extra insurance costs
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| 28 Jul 2008 |
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Broadening the Quality Measurement Landscape:
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| 9 Jul 2008 |
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Ensuring and Tracking Physician Competence
In the June issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, this article discussed major initiatives to change the way physicians maintain certification and licensure.
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| 30 Jun 2008 |
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Helping Surgeons Improve Technical Skills
CCS receives a number of questions about surgeons who need to improve their technical skills. Instead of trying to find a facility where the surgeon can practice on actual patients, CCS works with the surgeon to create an educational process that includes training via simulator. The learning activities can be individualized to incorporate the requirements set forth by a hospital or licensing body.
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| 15 Jun 2007 |
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Alabama Drops in Annual Ranking of Doctor Oversight
A decrease in disciplinary actions by Alabama's Board of Medical Examiners dropped the state 13 spots in a national ranking of medical boards. Consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen issued rankings based on states' average serious disciplinary action rates for 2004, 2005, and 2006. Serious disciplinary actions consist of revoking or restricting medical licenses.
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| 15 Jun 2007 |
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Ohio Cracking Down on Doctors' Mistakes
Ohio cracks down on its doctors more than most other states. The Buckeye State is among the top 10 states with the highest rates of serious disciplinary actions from 2004 to 2006, said a new study by Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group.
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