ABMS Insights (09/01/24)

De-identified data gathered from analyses of American Board of Medical Specialties Member Boards' certification programs can be used by the societies to bolster their continuing medical education (CME) programs and, ultimately, improve patient care. The practice gaps identified are used by the specialty societies to enhance their formative assessments. For example, the American Board of Dermatology (ABD) asked nearly two dozen specialty societies to complete a gap report in 2022. "The goal was to seek the societies' expert perspectives of practice gaps in the field, including gaps their experts believe that dermatologists could and should improve, key articles to consider that best expand or update knowledge in their society's areas of expertise, and any other advice for us to consider when creating assessment content," said Erik Stratman, MD, ABD's Associate Executive Director for Research and Continuous Improvement. Research staff from the board are now working to integrate responses from the societies that completed the gap report into the assessment and CE program structure. An ABD evaluation of several internal sources of board-certified dermatologist data for 2022 and 2023 also included practice gaps noted by each subspecialty in their practice assessment program, commonly missed topics in CertLink assessments, and frequently selected articles for article-based assessment. That information was disseminated to the societies that completed the gap report, so they could incorporate it into their own educational programming.

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