Proctoring as a competency assessment tool
The following is an excerpt from Proctoring, FPPE, and Practitioner Competency Assessment: A Clinical Leader’s Guide, by Todd Sagin, MD, JD. In this new book, Sagin explains how to use the various types of proctoring to ensure physician competence and to complete FPPEs.
Proctoring as a competency assessment tool has had new life breathed into it by The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)’s insistence that practitioners demonstrate their current competence to hold privileges in accredited hospitals. No longer can physicians be deemed qualified based solely on their pedigree (i.e., education and training). Proctoring has reemerged as a way to see whether a doctor practices competently in real time. In 2007, The Joint Commission adopted focused professional practice evaluation (FPPE) standards that are designed to promote the assessment of current competency in three situations.
Proctoring in the healthcare context is not limited to hospital credentialing. It is a tool that can be used by specialty societies as part of board certification, by educational institutions to ensure a student has mastered specific medical procedures or techniques, by state licensing boards to determine whether an applicant should be granted a license, by a group practice to confirm the abilities of a partner, or by a payer network, accountable care organization, or clinically integrated network to confirm the quality of approved practitioners.
Proctoring in the context of competency assessment or performance improvement can be performed prospectively, concurrently, or retrospectively. Most organizations would be well advised to take advantage of all three approaches.
Source: Proctoring, FPPE, and Practitioner Competency Assessment: A Clinical Leader’s Guide