Practicing family physicians and family medicine residents have a unique opportunity to document, deploy, and claim valuable American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) Performance Improvement in Practice (PIP) credit for the incredible work they accomplished delivering care during the COVID-19 pandemic through the use of the ABFM’s COVID-19 Self-Directed Clinical Pilot.
The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians (OAFP) has created new tools including a step-by-step video, a list of suggested COVID-19 practice interventions, and other Self-Directed Pathway tools to help ABFM diplomates simply apply for the credit they so richly deserve.
Whether your practice has instituted enhanced workflow changes, patient management protocols, or made adaptations needed to optimize patient care services, the this project will assist family physicians in meeting their maintenance of certification goals and earn continuing medical education credit too.
In the spring of 2020, the ABFM created the COVID-19 Self-Directed Clinical Pilot, a PIP activity that allows family medicine diplomates to direct a custom, rapid-cycle quality improvement effort, regardless of whether they provide continuing care. This activity provides a mechanism for meeting the PIP requirement by documenting the unprecedented and rapid changes that family physicians and their care teams had to make to address the many different dimensions of care—not just clinical quality measures but process effectiveness and efficiency, patient satisfaction, safety, and the other characteristics that the practice has identified.
The COVID-19 Self-Directed Clinical Pilot activity has been accredited by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) for 20 Prescribed credits and many family physicians do not realize how simple the PIP process is for documenting their unique COVID-19 practice story can be. Through the OAFP’s COVID-19 Self-Directed Clinical Pilot campaign, concise messages and instructions on how to capture this much needed credit will assist family physician diplomates in fulfilling needed requirements to meet their maintenance of certification goals.
In order to meet requirements for Family Medicine Certification through the ABFM, family physicians must complete a total of 50 certification activity points, which includes a minimum of one PIP activity. There are a variety of PIP activities that have been developed by the ABFM as well as external providers. Completing these activities will provide family physician diplomates 20 points towards their overall 50-point activity requirement.
Promotion of the AAFP’s COVID-19 Self-Directed Clinical Pilot and the OAFP’s assistive tools are supported by a grant provided by the AAFP Foundation Philanthropic Consortium (FMPC) which is funded by members like you! Help programs like this continue to support family medicine by giving to the FMPC. Select “Chapter Grants” when making your gift online.