Advocate Health sponsors activities through the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Portfolio Program that promote our quality and safety improvement aims and while helping you earn continuing certification (MOC) credit from a participating ABMS Member Board or from the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA).

Advocate Health was approved in late 2013 to be a sponsor and can assist physicians with receiving MOC Part IV credit across 17 ABMS specialties for meaningful participation in projects designed to improve your practice and the care of your patients. Advocate Health is one of few programs, nationally, that can offer this service to all physicians, and is purposefully structured to provide the education, strategy and support to physicians as they work, in alignment with Board-reported Quality metrics, to improve patient outcomes.

You may select from curated, approved activities that our organization is implementing, or develop your own activities and submit them to our Portfolio Program for approval. Activities can be large in scale to address systemic and clinical issues or smaller activities to improve a specific area of practice. 

NCCPA

Certified Physician Assistants can earn Category 1 PI-CME credit with the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) for participating in activities with Advocate Health. Thanks to a collaborative agreement between NCCPA and the ABMS Portfolio Program, certified PAs can receive this high-value CME credit for participation in patient safety and performance improvement activities to improve the quality of patient care.

For more information click here: https://www.nccpa.net/abms-portfolio-program

Board Specific Credit

The table below shows what each participating Member Board awards to a physician who completes an approved activity through a sponsor organization. Any Board not listed does not currently participate in the ABMS Portfolio Program and credit must be submitted independently by a physician, as applicable.

Full printable chart  ABMS-Portfolio-Program-Credit-Translation-Chart-2024-06.

Process

1. Diplomate serving as the lead for a quality improvement project completes project application. This can be done before the project starts, during the project, or after the project is complete.
2. Advocate Health Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) team will review the application and may request additional information. Once the application is complete, the IPCE team will submit the project to ABMS and the certifying Boards.
3. ABMS and certifying Boards review and approve application.
4. IPCE team notifies the diplomate who submitted the application.
5. Diplomate(s) complete project attestations which details their involvement in the project and provides the IPCE team with the diplomate information needed to submit completion records to the certifying Board(s). Each person completing the project should complete an attestation.
6. Attestations reviewed by IPCE team, and upon satisfactory completion, the IPCE team will submit the attestations to the certifying Board(s).

Timelines

1. Project duration will vary but should include two full PDSA cycles.
2. IPCE team application review will take up to 4 weeks.
3. IPCE team attestation review will take up to 2 weeks.
4. Recognition from certifying Board(s) will take up to 4 weeks. 
5. Please note: to receive recognition in a specific year, project applications must be submitted to Advocate Health by October 1. Attestations must be submitted to Advocate Health by November 25. 

Active Participation

All individuals participating in the project must:

1. Identify and/or acknowledge a gap(s) in outcomes or in care delivery.
2. Identify and/or review data related to the gap(s).
3. Identify or acknowledge appropriate intervention(s) designed to improve the gap(s), OR participate in the planning and selection of intervention(s) designed to improve the gap(s).
4. Implement intervention(s) for a timeframe appropriate to addressing the gap(s), OR monitor and manage implementation of intervention(s) for a timeframe appropriate to addressing the gap(s).
5. Review data related to the gap(s).
6. Reflect on outcomes to determine whether the intervention(s) resulted in improvement. If no improvement occurs after an intervention, diplomates must reflect on why no improvement occurred.
7. Attest to meeting the above requirements and obtain the attesting signature of the project leader or person in a position of authority.