Specialty Board Certification Rate as an Outcome Metric for GME Training Institutions: A Relationship With Quality of Care

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Norcini ◽  
John R. Boulet ◽  
Amy Opalek ◽  
W. Dale Dauphinee

Educational outcome measures, known to be associated with the quality of care, are needed to support improvements in graduate medical education (GME). This retrospective observational study sought to determine whether there was a relationship between the specialty board certification rates of GME training institutions and the quality of care delivered by their graduates. It is based on 7 years of hospitalizations in Pennsylvania ( N = 354,767) with diagnoses of acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, or pneumonia. The 2,265 attending physicians were self-identified internists, and they completed their training in 59 institutions. The percentage of board-certified physicians from each training institution, excluding the physician herself or himself, was calculated and an indicator of whether it exceeded 80% was created. This was analyzed against inhospital mortality and length of stay, adjusted for patient/physician/hospital characteristics. There were significantly lower odds of mortality (adjusted Odd’s ratio [ OR] = .92, 95% CI [0.86, 0.98]) and log length of stay (adjusted OR = .98, 95% CI [.94, .99]) when the attending physician trained in a residency program with an 80% or greater certification rate. The results suggest that specialty certification rates may be a useful educational outcome for residency training programs.

2019 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-41
Author(s):  
Michael L. Farrell

ABSTRACT State medical board action that is deemed a restriction by an ABMS specialty board can result in a loss of board certification, impacting a physician's ability to practice, and frustrating a medical board's efforts to rehabilitate the physician and improve the quality of care provided to patients. State medical boards have difficulty predicting what types of actions constitute a restriction by a specialty board and imposing appropriate discipline because specialty boards use varying criteria to evaluate state medical board action. ABMS specialty boards experience frustration of their own when attempting to interpret actions from 70 separate state medical boards, each governed by its own laws and using its own nomenclature. This article summarizes the inconsistency of both specialty boards and state medical boards, describes the efforts to resolve this issue, and proposes a series of steps that will bring a higher degree of predictability to this process and meet the needs of all stakeholders.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulla Shehab ◽  
Khalid F. AlHabib ◽  
Akshaya S. Bhagavathula ◽  
Ahmad Hersi ◽  
Hussam Alfaleh ◽  
...  

Background: Most of the available literature on ST-Elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) in women was conducted in the developed world and data from Middle-East countries was limited. Aims: To examine the clinical presentation, patient management, quality of care, risk factors and inhospital outcomes of women with acute STEMI compared with men using data from a large STEMI registry from the Middle East. Methods: Data were derived from the third Gulf Registry of Acute Coronary Events (Gulf RACE-3Ps), a prospective, multinational study of adults with acute STEMI from 36 hospitals in 6 Middle-Eastern countries. The study included 2928 patients; 296 women (10.1%) and 2632 men (89.9%). Clinical presentations, management and in-hospital outcomes were compared between the 2 groups. Results: Women were 10 years older and more likely to have diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia compared with men who were more likely to be smokers (all p<0.001). Women had longer median symptom-onset to emergency department (ED) arrival times (230 vs. 170 min, p<0.001) and ED to diagnostic ECG (8 vs. 6 min., p<0.001). When primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) was performed, women had longer door-to-balloon time (DBT) (86 vs. 73 min., p=0.009). When thrombolytic therapy was not administered, women were less likely to receive PPCI (69.7 vs. 76.7%, p=0.036). The mean duration of hospital stay was longer in women (6.03 ± 22.51 vs. 3.41 ± 19.45 days, p=0.032) and the crude in-hospital mortality rate was higher in women (10.4 vs. 5.2%, p<0.001). However, after adjustments, multivariate analysis revealed a statistically non-significant trend of higher inhospital mortality among women than men (6.4 vs. 4.6%), (p=0.145). Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that women in our region have almost double the mortality from STEMI compared with men. Although this can partially be explained by older age and higher risk profiles in women, however, correction of identified gaps in quality of care should be attempted to reduce the high morbidity and mortality of STEMI in our women.


Stroke ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L James ◽  
Julian P Yand ◽  
Maria Grau-Sepulveda ◽  
DaiWai M Olson ◽  
Deepak L Bhatt ◽  
...  

Introduction Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) can be a devastating condition, requiring intensive intervention. Yet, few studies have examined whether patient insurance status is associated with ICH care or acute outcomes. Methods Using data from 1,711 sites participating in GWTG-Stroke database from April 2003 to April 2011, we identified 156,848 non-transferred subjects with ICH who had known discharge status. Insurance status was categorized as private, Medicaid, Medicare or none. We explored associations between lack of insurance (using private insurance status as the reference group) and in-hospital outcomes (mortality, ambulatory status, & length of stay) and quality of care measures (DVT prophylaxis, smoking cessation, dysphagia screening, stroke education, imaging times, & rehabilitation). We utilized multiple individual (including demographics and medical history) and hospital (including size, geographic region and academic teaching status)lcharacteristics as covariates. Results Subjects without insurance (n=10647) were younger (54.4 v. 71 years), more likely men (60.6 v. 50.8%), more likely black (33.2 v. 17.4%) or Hispanic (15.8 v. 7.9%), from the South (50.6 v. 38.9%), and had fewer vascular risk factors with the exception of smoking when compared with the overall subject population. Further, subjects without insurance were more likely to experience in-hospital mortality (25.9 v. 23.9%; adjusted OR 1.29) and longer length of stay (11.4 v. 7.8 days), but were more likely to receive all quality measures of care, be discharged home (52.1 v. 36.1%), and ambulate independently (47.5 v. 38.5%) at discharge compared with subjects with private insurance (n=40033). Conclusions Among GWTG-Stroke participating hospitals, ICH patients without insurance were more likely to die while in the hospital but experienced higher quality measures of care and were more likely to ambulate independently at discharge should they survive.


1997 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
SC Thomson ◽  
S Wells ◽  
M Maxwell

Prompt remove of chest tubes by RNs has allowed earlier and more aggressive ambulation of our patients and, along with other interventions, has decreased length of stay by 1.5 days while improving quality of care. Proper education, both didactic and clinical, is the key component in preparing RNs to safely and effectively perform this procedure.


Circulation ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 117 (20) ◽  
pp. 2637-2644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Schuberth ◽  
Tom A. Elasy ◽  
Javed Butler ◽  
Robert Greevy ◽  
Theodore Speroff ◽  
...  

Circulation ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 119 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christianne L. Roumie ◽  
Robert Greevy ◽  
Jennifer L. Schuberth ◽  
Tom A. Elasy ◽  
Theodore Speroff ◽  
...  

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