Professionalism &
  Maintenance of Certification

The ABIM Foundation is working to engage physicians in health care quality assessment and improvement. ABIM's Maintenance of Certification program is a vehicle for actualizing professionalism and instituting quality improvement. For more information on ABIM's Maintenance of Certification program, please visit www.abim.org/moc.

Recent publications illustrate the value of Maintenance of Certification, which encourages continuous assessment of physicians:

• A meta-analysis by Choudhry et al. suggests that physician knowledge and performance decline systematically over time (Annals of Internal Medicine. (2005) Vol. 142, pp. 260-274). In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Christine Cassel and Dr. Daniel Duffy from the ABIM, and Dr. Steve Weinberger from the American College of Physicians (ACP), suggest these data establish the need for intensified efforts by physicians to keep up. ABIM's Maintenance of Certification program is designed precisely for that purpose—to stimulate (and to evaluate) physician efforts to assess and respond to gaps in knowledge and performance.

• A joint survey with the ACP and ABIM suggests that physicians value certification (Annals of Internal Medicine (2006) Vol. 144, pp. 29-36). As of December 2003, 77% of diplomates holding time-limited certificates in only Internal Medicine (IM) were enrolled in Maintenance of Certification; 86% holding time limited certificates in IM and a subspecialty or area of added qualification were renewing their certificate; and 60% of the latter group were renewing their IM certificate as well. These percentages do not account for physicians no longer practicing or no longer practicing in internal medicine.

• “Association between Maintenance of Certification Examination Scores and Quality of Care for Medical Beneficiaries” is an article resulting from three studies designed to evaluate the relationship between Maintenance of Certification examination scores and physician quality and performance. One study evaluated the correlation between examination scores and process of care measures for Medicare patients with diabetes. Another study evaluated the relationship between examinations and scores and selected indicators for Medicare patients hospitalized with heart disease. Article in press.