Board Certification

This paper will describe current quality outcome measures and the significance for improving medical care. Organizational accountability and transparency has improved with the emergence of Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) programs and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPs). This article will review the role of the nurse manager in creating a culture for quality care as well as the nurse for meeting organizational and patient expectations. Organizations like The Joint Commission (JC), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and The American Nurses Association (ANA) have been critical in establishing standards for quality. This paper will also report on the most recent hospital statistics and steps taken to improve HCAHP scores and reduce readmission rates at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville (UTMCK). Statistics at UTMCK will also be compared to the Tennessee and National averages found on the Medicare website Hospital Compare. The aim of this paper is to explore if healthcare system initiatives are improving quality and enhancing patient outcomes.

Evidence-based practice is an approach used by health care professionals to continually use current best evidence-based research to make ethical and reliable decisions regarding patient care. “Research to promote evidence-based practice is becoming more and more a part of the regular work of health care leaders” (Grand Canyon University, 2015, p. 1). However, it is important to determine the difference between solid research and flawed research that provides unreliable inferences. Evidence-based research includes focusing on a clinical question; and includes the review and incorporation of several studies to strengthen the results of the new study (Grand Canyon University, 2015). Roddy et al. and Ganz et al. articles will be assessed to determine if the recommended changes were backed by solid research that warrants changes in a hospital.

Thus, Board Certification remains one of the most important measures of quality for practitioners. The public will probably continue to rely on board certification as a useful litmus test because the board has responded to public concerns and addressed them in a high-quality way. In1986, the board started to issue a “time-limited” certificate to ensured physicians maintained their knowledge of the profession during the life of their practice (Seiler, Hurwitz, 2010). Comparably, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards require National Board Certified Teachers to renew their National Board Certification every 10 years, to promote continued professional growth in the teaching profession for the length of their career. Thus every national board certified teacher must renew in their content areas. According to Nagin and Patricia (2011), specialty areas exist in the area of law that is based on “standards and created by a committee of very seasoned antitrust and trade regulation lawyers selected by the bar president. These lawyers possess broad and varied experience to practice regularly in the

The AAPC was founded in 1988 to provide education, training, certification, networking and job opportunities to physician-based medical coders.

A review of the sample questions presented on the National Board Website has opened my eyes to the depth of knowledge a teacher is expected to demonstrate when seeking national board certification. When I first began considering National Board Certification I expected the content knowledge portion of the test to consist of Algebra, Geometry, Data Analysis, and the other common math concepts, but I did not consider the possibility of being tested in the areas of trigonometry and calculus because these are not areas that I teach. In fact, these are areas I will have to brush up in and review because I have not looked at a Calculus or Trigonometry problem since by second year of college during my undergraduate degree.

Evidence Based Practice is crucial to support care provided to patient. It is imperative to get evidence base on proven clinical practice that provides valuable insights about human health and illness as per Polit and Beck (2017). The researcher must pick a topic to be research on and A PICOT question formulated. These questions help as a guidance on the research. The researcher then check to see what can be retrieve that are of importances to topic. In most case narrowing of the questions may help. The levels of evidence are important because it help with identifying hierarchy of evidence. The higher the Hierarchy of evidence the better evidence base information.

With increasing number of Physicians choosing not to go into primary care and increasing number of baby boomers crossing 65 years by the 2030, there is a very high demand for APRNs to fill up those gaps. The consensus model, which was first initiated in 2004, has been revised many times and finalized in 2008. It helps to regulate APRNs with licensure, accreditation, certification and education (Stanley, 2012).

Agreed, Richard, it is most certainly confusing. Perhaps Professor Fernandez will shed light on this subject for the both of us. Although, from what my previous coworker, (Licensed Prof Counselor) told me, the code of ethics, in addition to state and federal laws, are of course the framework to follow; however there are circumstances which call for exercising discretion. Having said that, for a couple of years that I worked with the elementary students in groups I followed the instruction of the counselor, and she would obtain additional advice from the social worker, and the school principle. I will do some further research on the topic tomorrow,

To test for, reject, accept, issue, rescind, suspend, or renew licenses of bachelor social workers, social workers, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists and professional counselors pursuant to this act and to hold hearings in relation therewith.

There are over one hundred specialties in nursing, each requiring different specifications of educational level, degree attained, and clinical contact hours. Numerous studies have shown that advanced education and certification improve collaboration and communication, patient satisfaction, and fewer adverse events in patient care, as well as improved outcomes in patient compliance. The state of Montana accepts 26 advanced practices registered nursing specialties. But each hospital encourages nurses to specialize and become certified to improve patient care. Certified Diabetes educator is a certification that requires only contact hours and an examination, no college courses required, although there are college course that prepare nurses

A non-profit organization, the American Board of Internal Medicine evaluates and certifies physicians who practice internal medicine - as well as the subspecialties of internal medicine. Once you have successfully completed a residency

Today’s healthcare system requires that healthcare professionals across the globe change their focus towards evidence-based practice to meet the needs of the complex clinical setting and constantly strive to improve patient care and outcomes. The United States Institute of Medicine (IOM) has created five core competencies to be utilized by all health care providers in order to enhance patient outcomes (Inter-professional Education Collaborative Expert Panel, 2011). The competencies are employing evidence-based practice, working in interdisciplinary teams, applying quality improvement, utilizing informatics, and providing patient-centered care (Institute of Medicine, 2010).

In my experience, we do a fair to poor job as physicians of self-regulating ourselves and immediate proxy peers’ work performance. Most organizations have existing procedures, policies, and committees in place to address physician performance. Medical staff by-laws, peer review process, and credentialing are a few such mechanisms. Several studies according to Choudry et al in the article Systematic Review: The Relationship between Clinical Experience and Quality of Health Care have found that physicians who have been in practice for more years are less likely to deliver high-quality care. There is also evidence to support the same finding for physicians who are in their first one to five years of post-residency career. To avoid being overly

CSI is a severity scoring system that uses disease-specific measurements to categorize different levels of a patient’s severity. [51-53] These measurements include patient historical factors, physiologic parameters, and laboratory results. CSI covers a wide spectrum of diseases; more than 3,500 disease-specific severity matrices have been developed. It has been applied to predict patients’ prognosis[46], length of stay, re-hospitalization[54] and service cost[55, 56] and so on. Additionally, it has been used as a control factor in both retrospective [56, 57] and prospective clinical studies [58], which is hallmark of the Practice-Based Evidence (PBE) Research [59, 60]. Compared with traditional randomized control trial (RCT) studies[59], PBE studies simplify inclusion of a larger sample size, promote conducting long term follow-up, and are closer to real practice as opposed to the restrictions placed recruitment in RCTs. Compared with traditional observational studies[59], PBE standardizes confounding factors and makes the study design easier, more reliable, and more reproducible.

Evidence-based health care is the “conscientious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients or the delivery of health services” (Cochrane, 2014). Best evidence is based on current information from relevant, peer-reviewed research that can include such topics as the effects of health care, the potential for harm, the accuracy of diagnostic tests, and the reliability of prognostic factors (Cochrane, 2014). Several different scales exist to quantify and assess this evidence, such as the one used by the U.S. Preventive Task Force (USPSTF, 2012). For purposes of the DNP program, the scale utilized by the Joanna Briggs Institute is more applicable (JBI, 2013, pdf). The JBI Grades of Recommendation consist of an “A” grade and a “B” grade. An “A” grade signifies a strong recommendation based desirable effect, adequate supporting data, beneficial of low impact to resource utilization, and that values, patient experience, and preferences have been considered. A “B” grade signifies a weak recommendation where it is unclear if desired effect outweighs undesired effect, the supporting evidence is not of high