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The future of the certification system in emergency medicine.

The heart of the specialty of emergency medicine, like all specialties and subspecialties, is training. The excellence in medical care that has accrued to the American public has proceeded from the belief that a well-defined and accredited program of education will produce the highest probability that a physician providing care will be competent. There is now a joint opportunity in emergency medicine to build a certification and recertification system that meets the criteria to provide the highest quality care for the public and to offer an efficient and effective system for the members of the specialty.

Certification↗

Experiences with the New York State Bovine Leukosis Virus Eradication and Certification Program.

The Diagnostic Laboratory at the Veterinary College at Cornell University has offered a bovine leukosis virus (BLV) eradication/ certification program since 1985. The program has been popular with purebred breeders since its inception. Recently, many commercial dairymen have also begun participating to reduce the high incidence of clinical leukosis observed in their heavily infected herds. Eradication is achieved through a management and testing program designed to meet the needs of each farm. Over the years, experiences and observations have elucidated a number of factors that significantly affect the rate of progress and time required for a herd to become "BLV-Free."

Animal Husbandry↗

A statistical analysis of board certification in clinical neuropsychology.

In this paper, we use tools from decision theory to evaluate the effectiveness of the current psychology board certification process used by the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology (ABCN). These analyses indicate that ABCN's current process is likely to be failing to certify too many competently trained candidates, and identifying relatively few truly competent neuropsychologists. In fact, we estimate that ABCN is only certifying between 16 and 52% of competent clinical neuropsychologists. This is in contrast to the processes of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), after which ABCN has indicated that it models its examination. ABMS estimates that 89% of all practicing physicians are board-certified by one of their member boards. Based on our analyses, specific recommendations for change are offered for credentialing the profession of neuropsychology.

Certification↗

Anesthesiologists' interest in neonatal resuscitation certification.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To survey graduates from our residency program to determine their involvement and their interest in becoming certified in neonatal resuscitation. DESIGN: Survey questionnaire. SETTING: Graduates from the University of Pennsylvania Anesthesia Program between 1989 and 1999. SUBJECTS: 212 individuals completed the residency; addresses were available for 189 and the response rate for these individuals was 156. RESULTS: Of the respondents with obstetric anesthesia responsibilities, 65% have been involved in resuscitation of the newborn. Sixteen percent were certified, but 81% were interested in certification. If the hospital had less than 1000 deliveries per year, the probability of the anesthesiologist having to perform neonatal resuscitation was 11.0 times greater than if the hospital had more than 1000 deliveries per year (confidence interval, 1.4--86). CONCLUSIONS: Despite guidelines recommending the contrary, anesthesiologists are involved in the resuscitation of the newborn. The majority of these individuals are not certified but are interested in becoming certified. The ASA should establish programs to offer the opportunity to learn and to reinforce these skills.

Analgesia, Obstetrical↗

Capillary blood collection for neonatal screening tests should require a certificate of competence.

Fourteen years ago, Patricia Townshend (1980) suggested that, "blood letting by heel prick should become a procedure that requires a certificate of competence". To date, her suggestion has not been adopted, as competency is not a requirement to undertake this procedure. However, over the years many institutions have introduced accreditation for similar skills, such as diabetic monitoring and venepuncture. As a consequence, I believe standards of patient care have improved immensely. No longer can we assume all midwives are using the same techniques for neonatal capillary blood collection. From my observations of varied practice, such as twisting the blade and making multiple punctures for the one screening test, coupled with the poor quality of blood spot specimens frequently received by the central screening laboratory, it could be suggested that the introduction of accreditation for this skill, is well justified.

Blood Specimen Collection↗

Assessment of vital status in Department of Veterans Affairs national databases. comparison with state death certificates.

PURPOSE: To determine the extent to which Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) database vital status information agrees with Washington state death certificates. METHODS: Using each data source, vital status was determined for 19,481 Washington state resident veterans hospitalized in Washington VA hospitals from 1994 to 1997, and for 33,602 Washington state resident veterans who were seen as outpatients during 1997. RESULTS: The agreement between VA and Washington state records was excellent for hospitalized veterans (kappa = 0.91, p < 0.0001). Three thousand one hundred-eight individuals (86.2% of all deaths) appeared in both files. Of those deaths missing in the VA files, 71% had no service-connected disability, VA pension, or other compensation. Among outpatients, agreement between the death files was very good (kappa = 0.82, p < 0.001). Three hundred seventy-two individuals (69.8% of all deaths) appeared in both files. Of those deaths missing in the VA files, 63% had no service-connected disability or VA pension or other compensation. CONCLUSIONS: The VA death files are a valid source of vital status information for veterans hospitalized in recent years. For veterans having exclusively outpatient visits, however, the VA files miss a substantial proportion of deaths. For these patients, alternative means of vital status ascertainment are warranted.

Aged↗

Regulation and certification issues.

Regulatory and certification issues for endoscopy are complex, detailed, and broad. The different sources of the myriad regulations often have conflicting agendas, and the venues that seek to regulate endoscopic practice often overlap and seem redundant. Nonetheless, in spite of, or perhaps as a result of stringent regulation, endoscopy in the United States in thriving and continues to grow each year. Moreover, the penalties for not following the various regulations can be severe, and may result in criminal and civil sanctions. Any physician starting or already participating in a freestanding endoscopy center is well served by becoming familiar with the intent and generalities of each regulatory situation, and seeking appropriate legal and consulting counsel for specifics.

Certificate of Need↗

Pharmaceutical care certificate program: assessment of pharmacists' implementation into practice.

OBJECTIVE: To measure the effects of a Pharmaceutical Care Certificate Program (PCCP) in community pharmacists. DESIGN: This study compared the effects of the PCCP over time using a repeated measures design. SETTING: Retail, independent, and managed care pharmacy. PARTICIPANTS: 36 pharmacists who participated in the PCCP. INTERVENTIONS: PCCP, which was developed to train pharmacists in (1) practice re-engineering, (2) components of pharmaceutical care, and (3) drug therapy management of disease states. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: (1) pharmacist job functions, (2) pharmaceutical care job functions, (3) pharmaceutical care components, (4) pharmacist-perceived barriers to providing pharmaceutical care, and (5) proposed solutions for overcoming barriers. RESULTS: When comparing pharmacists at baseline and after 1 year, pharmacists after 1 year felt significantly better prepared to perform all pharmaceutical care components. CONCLUSION: Although the PCCP was successful in preparing pharmacists to perform the pharmaceutical care components covered in the program, time seems to be one of the major barriers for their actual implementation into practice. One proposed solution is the development of partnerships between pharmacists and schools of pharmacy.

Certification↗

[Staff certification for mobile blood collection units].

Training and official acknowledgment of the competence of each staff member are essential to the quality and safety of collected blood products prepared and delivered by a blood transfusion center. A procedure was created to indicate in detail the methods employed to implement such accreditation. Based on individual training according to activity, it defines for each type of activity (secretary, physician, collector, driver) the required theoretical and practical knowledge of his/her position. Accreditation, consisting of assessment of the degree of competence attained in these areas of responsibility, was applied to the members of mobile blood collection teams in 1995. No major deficiency was detected, and this certification was well accepted by the staff. In order to complete this initial accreditation, blood collection abnormalities (inadequate blood volumes, clots or defective welding of tubing) were assessed for each collector individually. Comparison of these abnormalities in qualified nurses and laboratory technicians with a blood collection diploma showed no differences. On the other hand, significantly higher numbers of abnormalities were found in intermittent as compared to regular collectors and in senior as compared to new collectors. The applied corrective measures led to obviation of differences and improvement in performance. In 1996, in the first individual evaluation of medical selection carried out by each physician, discrepancies of one to 20 donors (0.7-14.2%) were observed from one doctor to another in the frequency of elimination of candidates for blood donation after the medical interview. Regular meetings with physicians resulted in reducing these discrepancies to one to 3.1 donors (4.6-14.1%) in 1997. In conclusion, the association of an initial accreditation procedure with an individual follow-up of work quality allowed satisfactory assessment of the training and competence of staff members. This kind of method could be extended to those working in other fields of transfusion medicine.

Allied Health Personnel↗

Examination adaptation: translating the national nurse-midwifery/midwifery certification examination.

The national certification examination in nurse-midwifery/midwifery was adapted to the Puerto-Rican Spanish language. Specific attention was paid to creating a version of the examination that was both culturally and linguistically relevant, while remaining appropriately representative of national standards of practice. The procedures used in translation and cultural adaptation are described. The process used in review of the examination followed usual and customary practice. This included consideration of item critiques received from candidates (qualitative data) and the computation of standard measures of item performance, including item difficulty indices and the standard error of measurement (quantitative data). Additional analyses conducted for this specific purpose included the calculation of an index of differential item performance between both language versions. All measures of assessment indicated that the adapted language version was of high quality and psychometrically equivalent to the English language version, which was the comparison standard.

Certification↗

Measurement of child mortality in association with a multipurpose birth certificate programme in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.

A simple and inexpensive method for monitoring child mortality in association with birth registration was introduced into the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Eight thousand two hundred and one newborn infants were registered in 1988, approximately 77% of all children born in that year. The risk of death by age 2 was determined from reports given by the mother on the present status of a previously born child at the time of a recent delivery or during clinic registration of the current birth. This was 91 per 1000 for the province and corresponds to a risk of death by age 1 of 77/1000 by extrapolation using standard lifetables. This method was validated by comparison with a continuing demographic surveillance system covering 30,000 people in the western part of the province. The new birth certificate has been an incentive to increase supervised delivery rates and to generate a register that can be used to increase vaccination coverage.

Birth Certificates↗

The ESMO programme of certification and training for medical oncology.

ESMO has designed a programme of certification and training in medical oncology. In this paper the background of these programmes is given, and the programme of graduate education is described in greater detail. The standard requirements are a total training period of six years, beginning with a common internship in internal medicine of at least two years, followed by a training programme in oncology for three to four years, which must include at least one year of full-time clinical training in the diagnosis and management of neoplastic diseases, accompanied by one year of experience in an ambulatory care setting.

Certification↗

Occupation and bladder cancer: a death-certificate study.

Occupational statements on death certificates of 2,457 males aged 25-64 who died from bladder cancer in selected coastal and estaurine regions of England and Wales during 1965-1980 were studied. Excess mortality was found for deck and engine room crew of ships, railway workers, electrical and electronic workers, shoemakers and repairers, and tobacco workers. An excess of cases also occurred among food workers, particularly those employed in the bread and flour confectionary industry or involved in the extraction of animal and vegetable oils and fats. Use of a job-exposure matrix revealed elevated risk for occupations in which most workers were exposed to paints and pigments, benzene and cutting oils.

Adult↗

Re-accreditation, re-certification and the postgraduate database.

A consultation paper from the GDC has suggested that there will be a re-accreditation and re-certification procedure for dental practitioners which will require evidence of continuing postgraduate education. There is debate as to how that information should be held and who should hold it.

Accreditation↗

American Board of Clinical Pharmacology fellowship training and certification in clinical pharmacology: educational value and future needs for the discipline.

Currently, the training and education of young clinical pharmacologist who represent the future of our discipline rest almost entirely on institutions/organizations with established and productive fellowship training programs. Here, we discuss the role of the American Board of Clinical Pharmacology (ABCP) in accrediting fellowship training programs and certifying individual clinical pharmacologists. We also explore how ABCP certification adds value to both individual trainees and the discipline in the evolving world of clinical therapeutics and research in human pharmacology.

Certification↗

Feasibility study prior to the certification of trace elements in urban and industrial wastewater reference materials.

Reliable results for the determination of trace elements in urban and industrial wastewaters are of paramount importance for both checking the performance of sewage treatment and for detecting possible urban or industrial contamination sources. The quality control of measurements should in principle rely on external tools such as certified reference materials (CRM), which should represent, as closely as possible, the matrix of samples currently analysed, e.g., in the frame of environmental monitoring. To date, however, no CRM representatives of wastewater composition are available, which limits the possibility for control laboratories to check their QC externally. To fill this gap, the European Commission's Standards, Measurements and Testing Programme (formerly BCR) has started a European collaborative project of which the aim is to test the feasibility of preparation of wastewater reference materials and the analytical state-of-the-art to enable the certification of trace elements in such matrices. This paper presents the results of the first phase of this project, namely the feasibility study and the results of an interlaboratory trial.

Certification↗

Examination for the Certificate in Advanced Practice in Cervical Cytology--the first year's experience.

Following the decision to establish an Advanced Biomedical Scientist Practitioner grade for senior biomedical scientists in the NHS Cervical Screening Programme, a conjoint examination board has been appointed by the Royal College of Pathologists and Institute of Biomedical Science to oversee the Certificate in Advanced Practice in Cervical Cytology examination. The examination consists of a multiple-choice paper, short-answer written questions and practical microscopy sections covering screening of unmarked slides, and more complex discussion cases. In the first year there were 58 entries with 29 successful candidates, a pass rate of 50%. The standard of performance in the examination showed a wide range, and some candidates appear to have underestimated the degree of preparation, knowledge or level of microscopy skill required.

Cell Biology↗