Friday, July 01, 2016

ACGME Announces New Affiliation with ABMS

PRNewswire - (Chicago) July 1, 2016 - Today, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) announced a new affiliation with the American Board of Medical Stenographers (ABMS), promising new efficiencies and reduced medical transcription errors within the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). "Ever since the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) 1999 report entitled "To Err is Human" that claimed as many as 98,000 patient deaths as a result of medical errors, we've been looking for ways to reduce medical errors in today's hospitals and clinics," said Joseph Throckmorton, MD, President and CEO of the ACGME. "The public has been asking for a way to certify all US physician's typing skills to assure the highest standards of patient care quality and safety," he said.

As part of this program, the ABMS has instituted a Maintenance of Typical Skills® (MOTS®) program using a simple online typing test performed each month in the convenience of the physician's own home or via his or her mobile device. Test scores will be verified and uploaded to the ABMS CertificationMatters website for public review. The cost for physicians will be nominal - only $25 per month. Typing speed and error toleranance levels will be determined by the Board and subject to change. Physicians who fail the test can retake it twice before they must re-register to maintain their credential. A Pledge of Honesty is required of all participants.

"The importance of such a credential comes at a time when self-regulation of our profession is more important than ever," said Imso Boring, MD, JD, President and CEO of the ABMS. "We're proud we could play a part in the harmonization of this important patient care metric with other critical patient care quality and safety initiatives promoted by the ACGME."

Existing members of the ACGME include the American Board of Medical Specialties, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Council of Medical Specialty Socities, the American Osteopathic Association, and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.

It is currently estimated that EMR typographical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States.

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Hope all my faithful readers have a happy and healthy 4th of July.
 
-Wes

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hah! I love a little April Fool's in July! Scary thing is though - I took it a little seriously for a moment - like nothing should be put past the machinations of the truly evil ABIM and ABMS.

Anonymous said...

Hey Dr. Wes,

Happy Fourth of July!

You and your blog are protectors of Freedom, Truth, Justice, and the American Way!

God Bless Dr. Wes.

Unknown said...

As long as MOTS had a category for 2 finger typing and allowed spell checker I would have preferred it to MOC (less expensive also)

K Murray Leisure MD Infectious diseases MA USA said...

To-o FUNNY! Perhaps our ABMS MOC (tm) proprietary project managers might add Maintenance of Prescriptions or MOP (tm) tests to recertify already Boarded diplomats on the accurate prescribing of medications? After all, medical prescriptions contribute increasingly to patient errors and deaths...so why not tax, oops charge more fees, and recertify the doctors providing such prescriptions? Never mind that taxation without representation is tyranny, as true this July 4 as in past years. Might ABMS MOC executives justify the extra fees and work burden for enhanced "patient safety" as defined by the National Quality Forum, NQF, oops, the National Quorum of Fakes? In reality, all MOC should have ended by now as a huge, vile, invalidated, irrelevant, and extremely costly waste of health care resources (July 6, 2016).