title: Improving the quality of care via maintenance of certification and the Web: an early status report.
abstract: Few question the need for continuous professional development throughout a physician's career, but rapid changes in health care are creating demand for physicians to acquire new knowledge, skills, and attitudes to implement quality improvement in clinical practice. The Internet and World Wide Web are technologies that have the potential to facilitate deep change in physician practice and lifelong learning. This paper describes how the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has utilized the Web and the Internet to engage physicians in the competencies of practice-based learning and improvement and systems-based practice. Specifically, we describe how the ABIM developed and implemented Web-based practice improvement modules (PIMs) to help physicians measure and improve their clinical practice.
authors.affiliation: American Board of Internal Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA. eholmboe@abim.org
authors.forename: Eric S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Holmboe
authors.forename: Lorna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lynn
authors.forename: F Daniel
authors.initials: FD
authors.lastname: Duffy
mesh_terms: D002568:Certification / Q000379:methods*; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*