News in brief - June 27, 2005

Pediatricians name new leader - Florida tracks continuing education via the Internet - NRMP nixes a second Match - Quality forum names chair-elect

Pediatricians name new leader

The American Academy of Pediatrics elected Atlanta pediatrician Jay E. Berkelhamer, MD, as its new vice president. Dr. Berkelhamer will take office as president-elect at the AAP National Conference and Exhibition, planned for October in Washington, D.C., and will serve as the 2006-07 AAP president.

The AAP is the nation's largest pediatric organization, with a membership of 60,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists.

Florida tracks continuing education via the Internet

The Florida Continuing Education Tracking system for health care professionals has now exceeded 1 million reported courses taken.

Florida introduced the tracking system in January 2004 as a way to audit the continuing education activities of Florida's physicians and other health care professionals.

The system tracks CME taken by some 500,000 Florida health care licensees regulated by the Florida Dept. of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance. The system will start reporting compliance for all licensee renewals after the end of 2005.

NRMP nixes a second Match

The National Resident Matching Program will not implement a proposed two-phased Match, in which applicants who did not match in the first round would participate in a second Match for unfilled positions. Although medical students supported the idea, resident program directors and others involved in the process found there were too many implementation problems to make it feasible.

Match officials also have tabled a proposed policy change that would have required all institutions participating in the Match to register all their positions in the Match, except for those specialties or programs participating in other national matching programs. Program directors feared that residencies that rely heavily on international medical graduates would be hurt because of the lengthy visa application process.

Quality forum names chair-elect

William L. Roper, MD, MPH, recently was elected to the National Quality Forum's board of directors and named chair-elect.

Dr. Roper is CEO of the University of North Carolina Health Care System. He is also dean of the UNC School of Medicine, vice chancellor for Medical Affairs, professor of health policy and administration in the School of Public Health and professor of pediatrics in the School of Medicine at UNC.

Dr. Roper is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and serves on the institute's governing council. He was vice chair of the NQF board of directors from 1999 to 2004.

"Dr. Roper has long understood the importance of public reporting as it relates to health care quality improvement," Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, president and CEO of the NQF, said in a statement. "His background in both the private sector and in the federal government shows his capacity to lead different types of organizations toward the common goal of providing better health care for all Americans."