The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has announced that Texas Children’s Hospital has joined the ABMS Multi-Specialty Portfolio Approval Program™ (Portfolio Program). Texas Children’s physicians who are Board Certified by one of 21 of the 24 ABMS Member Boards participating in the Portfolio Program and are engaged in eligible activities can now obtain maintenance of certification (MOC) credit.
“ABMS and its 24 Member Boards are committed to offering practice relevant, rigorous MOC programming that aligns with the daily work of physicians,” explained Dr. David Price, executive director of the Portfolio Program. “The Portfolio Program supports this by encouraging and recognizing meaningful physician engagement in QI efforts with MOC credit. The Program’s ability to offer credits through a collaboration with 21 participating Member Boards makes it possible for Board Certified physicians participating in Texas Children’s programs to receive MOC credit across a wide continuum of specialty and subspecialty practice areas.”
Texas Children’s has identified three Quality Improvement (QI) and practice improvement (PI) inaugural initiatives, two of which are hospital system based and one that is hospital based and aligned with a statewide Medicaid program. Involving more than 50 physicians and 1,500 children in the Texas Children’s enterprise, the “Improving Pediatric Quality of Life” initiative is part of the Texas Medicaid Healthcare Transformation program aimed at improving access to care, as well as the quality of care for the region’s pediatric patients. Texas Children’s has established a goal of a 10 percent improvement in the quality of life (QOL) scores for the patients treated within 12 clinics and departments at the hospital. Texas Children’s Board Certified physicians engaged in structured efforts to measure, translate and act upon QOL to impact the quality of care at the patient, clinic and population levels will now also receive MOC credit.
“We have the ability to incentivize and reward physicians for their dedication to quality improvement work,” says Dr. Charles Macias, chief clinical systems integration officer and MOC program leader at Texas Children’s. “The program and its integration across clinical systems has allowed physicians across multiple disciplines the opportunity to work toward change across continuums of care. It has markedly accelerated our efforts to improve the patient experience, improve outcomes and reduce the per capita cost of care. It has contributed greatly to our transformation of care at both the bedside and population level.”
Two additional Texas Children’s Main Campus-based initiatives focus on QI activities in cardiovascular services. The first initiative, impacting an estimated 33 patients a year, focuses on the prevention of bacterial infections in patients with heart transplants. The second initiative seeks to standardize the transfusion practice in the cardiovascular operating room with the goal of establishing a similar standardized treatment protocol for craniofacial, scoliosis, trauma and liver transplant surgery.
To date, the Portfolio Program has helped engage more than 8,000 physicians in practice improvement initiatives at hospitals and health systems across the country, many showing improvement in care outcomes, and has recognized their participation with MOC-eligible credit. Since its inception, more than 1,300 QI efforts have been completed by Portfolio Program participants.
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