Introduction: In recent years, coaching, as a supplement to professional development, has received increased attention, especially in nursing. Still, only little is known about how health professionals experience participating in coaching sessions. The purpose of this pilot study was to describe and analyze health professionals' experiences from…

Introduction: Minimal attention has been given to the intersection and potential collaboration among the domains of continuing education (CE), knowledge translation (KT), quality improvement (QI), and patient safety (PS), despite their overlapping objectives. A study was undertaken to examine leaders' perspectives of these 4 domains and their…

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive framework of quality improvement competencies for use in continuing professional development (CPD) and continuing medical education (CME) for European general practice/family medicine physicians (GPs/FDs). Methods: The study was carried out in three phases: literature review,…

Introduction: There has been a surge of interest in the area of bias in industry-supported continuing medical education/continuing professional development (CME/CPD) activities. In 2007, we published our first study on measuring bias in CME, demonstrating that our assessment tool was valid and reliable. In light of the increasing interest in this…

Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) is a large system intervention designed to align efforts and motivate the creation of a tiered system of improvement at the national, state, practice, and patient levels, assisting primary-care physicians and their practice teams to assess and measurably improve the quality of care for chronic illness and…

Introduction: Health regulatory colleges promote continued competence by requiring members to submit yearly portfolios that document learning. Previous studies conclude that portfolios can be valuable tools to promote continuous learning in health college members, but portfolios are time-consuming to complete and difficult to evaluate. This…

Introduction: Pennsylvania's Improving Performance in Practice (IPIP) program is administered by the Pennsylvania (PA) chapters of the American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians, and American Academy of Pediatrics. The project has provided coaching, monthly measurement, and patient registry support for 155 primary-care…

Introduction: Medical associations and licensing bodies face pressure to implement quality assurance programs, but evidence-based models are lacking. To improve the quality of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT), the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Canada, conducts an innovative quality assurance program on the basis of peer…

Introduction: Deficiencies in physician competence play an important role in medical errors and poor-quality health care. National trends toward implementation of continuous assessment of physicians hold potential for significant impact on patient care because minor deficiencies can be identified before patient safety is threatened. However, the…

Introduction: The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) recognized that certification and recertification must be based on an assessment of performance in practice as well as an examination of medical knowledge. Physician self-assessment of practice performance is proposed as one method that certification boards may use to evaluate competence…

Review of 205 continuing medical education (CME) websites found the following: most university sites offered only class schedules; far more commercial sites than university sites offered online CME content; 60-80% of content met quality control standards; only 10% of sites provided information on peer review of content. (SK)

Underperformance among physicians is not well studied or defined; yet, the identification and remediation of physicians who are not performing up to acceptable standards is central to quality care and patient safety. Methods for estimating the prevalence of dyscompetence include evaluating available data on medical errors, malpractice claims,…

Health care practices continue to evolve with technological advances integrating computer applications and patient information management into telemedicine systems. Telemedicine can be broadly defined as the use of information technology to provide patient care and share clinical information from one geographic location to another. Telemedicine…

Introduction: In 1996 the University of Michigan Health System created the Guidelines Utilization, Implementation, Development, and Evaluation Studies (GUIDES) unit to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of primary care for common medical problems. GUIDES's primary functions are to oversee the development of evidence-based, practical…

Continuing medical education (CME) on the Internet has grown steadily over the past several years. However, the quality of Web-based CME has received limited attention in the medical literature, and there have been few attempts to articulate quality standards. This article describes five sets of standards published in the distance education…