Dear Diplomates and Colleagues,

On behalf of the ABPM Board of Directors and Staff, I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and wish you all the best for the coming New Year!

The ABPM’s vision for the New Year includes increased bidirectional communication between the Board and our Diplomates. This includes dissemination of various surveys designed to elicit feedback and inform the Board as to what our Diplomate’s believe are the most relevant and meaningful activities to be included in a Continuing Certification Program (CCP).  Additionally, the Board is responding to the feedback it has already received regarding the interim steps that, to date, have been taken in order to bridge the gap between the ABPM’s current MOC Program and the ABPM’s future CCP.  If you don’t take the time to participate, then your inputs won’t influence the process.

One of the most exciting new initiatives is the ABPM’s longitudinal assessment pilot (the “LAP”). The LAP, approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties in November 2019, is a twenty-four-month pilot program that will begin in the first quarter of 2021 and include all Diplomates Certified by the ABPM in Clinical Informatics.  The LAP is another step toward a total renovation of the ABPM’s current MOC process.  This issue has more info on the LAP pilot effort.

The LAP is just one part of ABPM’s transition from its current MOC program to a new and innovative CCP.  ABPM Directors and Staff have carefully considered suggestions and recommendations gleaned from Diplomate survey responses (we do read your comments!) and personal interactions with Diplomates in order to make meaningful and acceptable changes to the recertification process. Our website holds many of the latest details and can be found by reading through this newsletter and clicking on the various embedded links.

We want to be sure that the transition from MOC to Continuing Certification is more than just a name change and instead represents a new direction emphasizing continuing education and improvement through useful performance feedback to physicians and targeted physician learning while eliminating unnecessary and burdensome requirements on your time and resources. The end goal is for our CCP to aid Diplomates in maintaining their knowledge, skills and abilities as well-rounded and current preventive medicine specialists and subspecialists.

Throughout this process, the ABPM wants to hear from you on what works and what doesn’t. Your suggestions and recommendations are welcome, so send us a note.

Thanks for reading this entire edition and for checking out the website info. We hope to hear from every one of you as we reimagine continuing certification!

Hernando “Joe” Ortega, Jr., MD, MPH
Chair, American Board of Preventive Medicine