JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Observational Study
Association of the 2011 ACGME resident duty hour reform with general surgery patient outcomes and with resident examination performance.
In 2011, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) restricted resident duty hour requirements beyond those established in 2003, leading to concerns about the effects on patient care and resident training. ⋯ Implementation of the 2011 ACGME duty hour reform was not associated with a change in general surgery patient outcomes or differences in resident examination performance. The implications of these findings should be considered when evaluating the merit of the 2011 ACGME duty hour reform and revising related policies in the future.
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Comparative Study
Association between imposition of a Maintenance of Certification requirement and ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalizations and health care costs.
In 1990, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) ended lifelong certification by initiating a 10-year Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program that first took effect in 2000. Despite the importance of this change, there has been limited research examining associations between the MOC requirement and patient outcomes. ⋯ Imposition of the MOC requirement was not associated with a difference in the increase in ACSHs but was associated with a small reduction in the growth differences of costs for a cohort of Medicare beneficiaries.
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Comparative Study
Emergency department resource use by supervised residents vs attending physicians alone.
Few studies have evaluated the common assumption that graduate medical education is associated with increased resource use. ⋯ In a sample of US EDs, supervised visits were associated with a greater likelihood of hospital admission and use of advanced imaging and with longer ED stays. Whether these associations are different in EDs in which more than half of visits are seen by residents requires further investigation.
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Comparative Study
Association between physician time-unlimited vs time-limited internal medicine board certification and ambulatory patient care quality.
American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) initiatives encourage internists with time-unlimited certificates to recertify. However, there are limited data evaluating differences in performance between internists with time-limited or time-unlimited board certification. ⋯ Among internists providing primary care at 4 VA medical centers, there were no significant differences between those with time-limited ABIM certification and those with time-unlimited ABIM certification on 10 primary care performance measures. Additional research to examine the difference in patient outcomes among holders of time-limited and time-unlimited certificates in non-VA and nonacademic settings and the association with other ABIM goals may help clarify the potential benefit of Maintenance of Certification participation.