Practical Tips
So, we know things have changed, and we know things will be changing more, but what about now? What do we need to do to navigate the process to gain our FPHM certificate today?
1. Enter the process: You can’t win if you don’t play. Entering FPHM is easier than ever. The requirement for current active ACLS has been removed. Now it is a declaration that you see 1,000 patients a year or that you had 3,000 encounters in the last three years and pay the supplemental fee.
2. Earn 100 “points”: You have five years, with a mix of Part II and Part IV activities at least every two years, and the secure exam. You must have the patient voice and patient safety module credit as part of this every five years block.
2a. Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment (Part II): Show what you know or learn on an ongoing basis. You can do these at home, work, or with a buddy, or, even better, sign up for a group learning session, usually offered as a pre-course at society meetings. HM15 will be offering a pre-course that will offer Part II credit. SHM’s Hospital QI and Patient Safety Medical Knowledge Module is available at www.shmlearningportal.org.
2b. Practice Improvement (Part IV): Show that you are trying to improve your practice. Again, the ABIM website lists many possibilities for improvement activities that count and has a practice improvement module (PIM) selector tool (select “hospital medicine” and “inpatient”). Here are some of my favorite PIMs.
Team PIM. Complete a self-assessment of your team skills, get 10 members of your hospital multidisciplinary team to fill out an evaluation on you, and then review with a trusted colleague. This PIM also satisfies both patient voice and patient safety requirements (10 points).
SHM Project BOOST or SHM’s Glycemic Control Mentored Implementation Program. Do either of these at your hospital to earn 20 points.
Clinical Supervisor PIM. For those of you who work with residents or students. Observe 10 visits by learners, then follow up with a chart look-back, feedback to the learner, and a plan for improving learning (20 points).
3. Take a test! The secure exam is given every 10 years and counts for 20 points. What is great about this FPHM test is that it is focused on all the stuff you do every day in your job. It’s a hospitalist test, not an outpatient clinic doctor test. It focuses on inpatient clinical medicine and palliative care, plus patient safety and quality. You can use the current study materials (MedStudy, MKSAP [Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program], and the like); just skip the purely ambulatory material. Focused study materials will be available in the next year. Look for the HM15 exam preparation guide, which will direct you to HM15 sessions that cross over with the ABIM/ABFM [American Board of Family Medicine] Hospital Medicine exam.
If you would like other tools for studying for the consultative co-management and quality and patient safety sections of the exam, check out SHM Learning Portal.
Final Thoughts
It’s complicated, right? But each time I look at it or read one of these articles, it gets a bit simpler. The overall process for internal medicine certification now mirrors this one, with very few differences. Remember, the ABFM process is identical for hospitalists trained in family medicine. Hopefully, this column will help you get off the fence and come down on the side of representing what you do every day at work in the hospital.