Advancing the Science
   of Physician Evaluation

Best Evidence in Medical Education

The ABIM Foundation sponsored a study which summarizes the evidence related to the impact of assessment and feedback on physicians' clinical performance ("Systematic review of the literature on assessment, feedback and physicians' clinical performance*: BEME Guide No.7" Medical Teacher. (2006) Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 117-128. There is a basis for the assumption that feedback can be used to enhance physicians' performance. Nevertheless, the findings of empirical studies of the impact of feedback on clinical performance have been equivocal. This study advances the best evidence in medical practice systematic review of literature methodology.

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ABIM Medical Simulation-SimSuites™

The ABIM has adopted the use of simulation technology which is designed to improve the quality of patient care and reduce error by identifying and posing real clinical situations. The results of a research project conducted by ABIM recommended the implementation of simulation technology in to the self-evaluation component of the Maintenance of Certification program as a valid and reliable self-evaluation tool. Findings showed that the simulation was able to distinguish among physicians at different levels of expertise within interventional cardiology. This technology has the potential to improve patient care and reduce the error rate in patients undergoing invasive catheter-based cardiovascular procedures by helping physician's evaluate their technical proficiency.

The SimSuite™ cardiovascular mechanical simulator—owned by Medical Simulator Corporation—is the platform that is initially employed by ABIM to enhance the evaluation of procedural and technical skills for interventional cardiology.

With additional research, mechanical simulation may be able to enhance the value of ABIM's Interventional cardiology certificate by providing the following: high fidelity (face-validity, authentic assessment), standardized scenarios, a range of difficulty levels, and tangible outcome measures.

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Clincian Group CAHPS Survey

Efforts to reduce redundancy and data collection and replace inefficiency with national bench marking has culminated in the Clinician Group Survey from the Ambulatory Consumer Assessment of Health Plans set (A-CAHPS). This survey will replace ABIM's Peer and Patient Module to assess patient experience of care in the physician office. In establishing national benchmarks, ABMS has worked with the A-CAHPS team—a federally funded national consortium—to meet the data needs of its 24 member boards. Adoption and adaptation of the survey has been achieved through the efforts of the ABMS/A-CAHPS steering committee that allows collection of comparable data while addressing the different characteristics of physicians practicing different specialties.

For more information about the ABIM’s use of the Clinician Group Survey, please visit the Self-Evaluation of Practice Performance page on the ABIM website.

For more information about CAHPS, please go to https://www.cahps.ahrq.gov/default.asp.

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Correlation Analysis of Maintenance of Certification Exam Scores and Clinical Performance Measures

A set of three studies with other organizations has been designed to evaluate the relationship between Maintenance of Certification examination scores and physician quality and performance:

• One study is designed to evaluate the correlation between examination scores and process of care measures for Medicare patients with diabetes.
• One study is designed to evaluate the relationship between examination scores and selected indicators (30-day mortality post discharge and readmission rate) for Medicare patients hospitalized with heart disease.
• One study is designed to evaluate the correlation between examination scores and a broad set of outcomes for commercially-insured members with a variety of common conditions.

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Comprehensive Care PIM^sm Practice Improvement Module

This study will determine whether it is possible to differentiate physician performance by combining data that assess care across a broad range of conditions and quality measures. More than 23,000 patient records from a total of 236 practices are being analyzed.

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