ABIM approves AGA’s Procedural Sedation/Patient Safety PIM

American Gastroenterological AssociationMay 8 2012

The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute's Procedural Sedation/Patient Safety Practice Improvement Module (PIM) has received approval from the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) to be part of ABIM's Approved Quality Improvement (AQI) Pathway. Internal medicine physicians, gastroenterologists and any internal medicine subspecialists using procedural sedation can engage in quality improvement through the AGA Procedural Sedation/Patient Safety PIM to earn maintenance of certification (MOC) practice performance credit.

The AGA Procedural Sedation/Patient Safety PIM is the first independently developed PIM in the field of gastroenterology to be approved by the ABIM for MOC points toward the self-evaluation of practice performance requirement.

AGA's Procedural Sedation/Patient Safety PIM works as an online portal that guides physicians through a chart abstraction of de-identified patient data, compiling this information so as to help them identify patterns and select changes or interventions that should improve performance. Participating physicians will implement an improvement plan, followed by another chart extraction several months later. The PIM will generate a report comparing the two sets of charts, allowing physicians to easily assess the impact of their improvement plan and recognize opportunities for ongoing improvement in practice.

The sedation PIM focuses on practice based evaluation of the following five quality indicators:

• Risk assessment.
• Informed consent.
• Depth of sedation.
• Patient safety (managing medication).
• Patient satisfaction.

This activity is approved through the American Board of Internal Medicine's-Approved Quality Improvement (AQI) Pathway and is eligible for 20 points towards the self-evaluation of practice performance requirement of maintenance of certification.

ABIM is an independent, not-for-profit organization that grants board certification - a well accepted marker of physician quality - to internists and subspecialists. Certification is a rigorous, comprehensive program for evaluating physician knowledge, skills and attitudes to assure both patients and payers that a physician has achieved competence for practice in a given field. ABIM requires that physicians periodically recertify through the ABIM's MOC program.

"If physicians are already engaged in rigorous quality improvement activities through their hospital or another organization we want them to receive Maintenance of Certification credit for that activity," said Elizabeth Blaylock, vice president of PIM development at the American Board of Internal Medicine. "The American Gastroenterological Association has built a program that supports physicians in their efforts to measure and improve patient care."