January 2022

President’s Message

“Injustice Anywhere Is a Threat to Justice Everywhere.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Greetings, colleagues.  We hope you are as well as possible, as you help your patients and communities respond to Omicron. We honor your service: it is what family physicians do; it is important, and it is noble.

As we enter into a new year and reflect again on the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ABFM recommits to addressing health equity across many dimensions.  It begins with our mission and vision: “Optimal health and health care for all people and all communities that family physicians serve.” More explicitly, we have committed to “including health equity into our program of lifelong learning and quality improvement,” as stated in our 2019-2025 Strategic Plan.  In this issue, I am pleased to share with you the progress that has been made since our September 2020 announcement regarding how ABFM would be addressing healthy equity and diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI).   You will also find stories that feature Diplomates and Residents and describe how they are improving health equity, as part of our new “Health Equity in Action” series designed to help you with your own improvement efforts.

Read the full President’s Message here

ABFM’s Approach to Health Equity and DEI in the Curation of Knowledge Assessment Questions

ABFM understands the impact that systemic and structural racism and other forms of bias have contributed to the disproportionate health disparities and poor health status among minorities and other groups of disadvantaged patients. In doing so, we acknowledge our responsibility to ensure that the questions we use in all self-assessment activities and examinations are free from bias. This includes being diligent in our attempts to ensure the use of inclusive language in our questions and eliminating words and phrases that may reflect systemic biases.

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Certification Activities to Promote Improvements in Health Equity

ABFM has added several new options focused on Health Equity that allow you to meet certification requirements while increasing your knowledge and improving care in your practice.

For Knowledge Self-Assessment, ABFM worked with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) to develop the new Health Equity: Leading the Change assessment activity. The activity includes five (5) new modules aimed at helping physicians improve their knowledge of Health Equity, Social Determinants of Health, Supporting Vulnerable Populations, Championing Economics and Policy to Reduce Health Disparities, and Understanding the Impact of Climate Change on Population Health.

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Health Equity in Action: ABFM Diplomate Stories

The following two articles are part of ABFM’s new “Health Equity In Action” series. ABFM will be presenting unique experiences and programs through this series, both within ABFM and those shared by family medicine physicians nationwide. If you have a health equity related topic that you’d like to share as a potential story idea, please send us a message at [email protected].

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Equity and Diversity in Family Medicine Workshop Policy Brief Series

The January-February 2022 special issue of the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (JABFM) recently launched a special themed series focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). This series will include policy briefs and accompanying commentaries, authored by a diverse cadre of authors and collaborators, that explore issues of equity and diversity in family medicine and its workforce.

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PRIME Registry Illuminates the Role of Primary Care, Providing Vital Help to CDC Understanding of COVID-19

Since its launch in 2016, ABFM has offered the PRIME Registry to Diplomates and to other primary care clinicians to meet their needs for assessing and reporting on their clinical quality. Additionally, PRIME was also designed to help tell the primary care story – something never more important than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Primary care is where most people in the US have their health care relationships and receive most, or all, of their care. Yet it represents the least studied health care setting.

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New ABFM Research Page Goes Live

The ABFM Research Department is excited to announce the launch of its redesigned Research Webpage, dedicated to providing you with easy access to published research that is focused on creating, evaluating, and maintaining cutting-edge certification methods, and to advance the scientific basis for family medicine. Designed to be more visually appealing, organized, and reflective of current work, you can access all articles through our new search capability by keyword, topic, or author.

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Physicians Have Continuous Learning Options with FMCLA and CKSA

Rather than take your certification exam in one day in a potentially stressful setting, ABFM developed the Family Medicine Certification Longitudinal Assessment (FMCLA) to support Diplomates in completing their exam requirement over time using a longitudinal format that promotes learning at the same time you are having your cognitive knowledge assessed. After a three-year pilot demonstrated high levels of satisfaction with this approach and comparable psychometrics to the one-day examination, FMCLA was approved as a permanent exam option.

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National Journal Club to Build on Pilot Success in 2022

ABFM launched the National Journal Club Pilot in August 2021 for physicians to stay up to date on current practice-changing evidence covering a wide range of clinical topics while simultaneously earning Knowledge Self-Assessment (KSA) points. Over the six months since it launched, more than 8,800 physicians have completed over 47,000 articles. The feedback has been resoundingly positive, with many describing the activity as “easy to follow” and “an excellent resource!”

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New Self-Assessment Activities

ABFM is excited to announce three (3) additional new self-assessment options to help you earn points toward your continuous certification requirements.  Working with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), and the American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM), we have identified new content to help assess your current knowledge in managing obstetrical emergencies; caring for children and adolescents; and providing emergency care, all while also earning credit toward your 50-point stage requirement. All activities can be accessed in the Self-Assessment section of your MyABFM Portfolio or through the sponsoring organization.

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New Knowledge Self-Assessment (KSAs) Will Release in January

ABFM will release two (2) new KSAs in January 2022: Care of Older Adults and Care of Hospitalized Patients.

Two former KSAs focusing on Care of Vulnerable Elderly and Cerebrovascular Disease have been combined to create the new Care of Older Adults KSA.  After completing the Care of Older Adults KSA, you will be able to assess your knowledge gaps in the diagnosis and management of common, and some uncommon, medical conditions that occur in older adults, including geriatric psychiatry.  You will be able to provide evidence-based medical guidance to older adults in areas of prevention of disease and rehabilitation from disease, and you will have a better understanding of health systems, policies, and issues as they relate to older adult patients.

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