ABMS and NBME Announce Guiding Principles Collaboration
Lays the groundwork for possible future collaborations between ABMS and NBME

CHICAGO – Sept. 9, 2011 – The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the organization overseeing the certification of physician specialists in the United States, and the National Board of Medical Examiners® (NBME®), the organization that provides high-quality assessments of health care professionals, jointly announce agreement on a set of guiding principles for future collaboration in areas where the missions of ABMS and NBME coincide.  The ABMS-NBME collaboration, which was endorsed by the ABMS and NBME Board of Directors at their respective June meetings, is formally initiated through this agreement.

 “A number of the ABMS Member Boards conduct business with NBME, which is an Associate Member of ABMS.  ABMS and NBME have complementary roles that are parts of a larger system of assuring the public of physician competence for practice, within which our individual roles are each essential for that system to be effective,” said Kevin B. Weiss, MD, ABMS President and CEO.  “Currently, the only active collaboration discussions between ABMS and NBME are around supporting the State Medical Boards in implementing Maintenance of Licensure programs, which also involve the Federation of State Medical Boards.  ABMS and NBME have entered into a guiding principles collaboration with the expectation that it will further the missions of both organizations and present more opportunities to work closely on efforts to protect the health and safety of the public.”

“The NBME values its long collegial relationship with ABMS.  We have had rich
interactions with the ABMS members for nearly 100 years and with ABMS since its founding more than 75 years ago,” said Donald E. Melnick, MD, NBME President and CEO.  “The NBME’s focus on protecting patients and enhancing health care quality through effective assessment of health professionals and our leadership in the development of more effective assessment tools allow us to complement the excellent work of ABMS and its Member Boards.  I am convinced that the value of our collaborative efforts in the future will be greater than the sum of our individual contributions.  This framework of principles will facilitate the development of those specific collaborative projects.”

The focus of ABMS is the voluntary certification of physicians in specialties and subspecialties, and helping patients to obtain better care.  Its mission is to maintain and improve the quality of medical care by assisting the Member Boards in their efforts to develop and utilize professional and educational standards for the certification of physician specialists.  ABMS serves to coordinate the activities of its Member Boards and to provide information to the public, the government, the profession and its Members concerning issues involving certification of physicians.  The focus of NBME is obligatory assessment of general competence for medical licensure, provision of assessment tools to U.S. and international medical schools for intramural assessments, self-assessment tools for medical students and support for health care organizations in medicine and other health professions to meet their assessment needs.  Its mission is the protection of the health of the public through state-of-the-art assessment of health professionals, along with a major commitment to research and development in evaluation and measurement.  Both ABMS and NBME have long advocated the use of external assessment as a means of assuring continued competence along the continuum of medical education and practice.

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About ABMS
For more than 75 years, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has been the
medical organization overseeing physician certification in the United States.  It assists its
24 Member Boards in their efforts to develop and implement educational and
professional standards for the evaluation and certification of physician specialists.  ABMS
Member Boards provide physician certification information to ABMS for its certification
verification service programs.  ABMS is recognized by the key health care credentialing accreditation entities as a primary equivalent source of Board Certification data for medical specialists.  Patients can visit www.CertificationMatters.org or call toll-free (866) ASK-ABMS to see if their physician is Board Certified by an ABMS Member Board.  For more information about ABMS, visit www.abms.org or call (312) 436-2600.

The 24 Member Boards that make up the ABMS Board Enterprise and cover over 150 medical specialties and subspecialties include the: American Board of Allergy and Immunology, American Board of Anesthesiology, American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery, American Board of Dermatology, American Board of Emergency Medicine, American Board of Family Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Medical Genetics, American Board of Neurological Surgery, American Board of Nuclear Medicine, American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, American Board of Ophthalmology, American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, American Board of Otolaryngology, American Board of Pathology, American Board of Pediatrics, American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, American Board of Plastic Surgery, American Board of Preventive Medicine, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, American Board of Radiology, American Board of Surgery, American Board of Thoracic Surgery and American Board of Urology.

About NBME
Founded in 1915, the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that serves the public through its high-quality assessments of health care professionals.  NBME is a membership of approximately 80 individuals drawn from national medical organizations, health care professions, medical education and regulation communities and the public; a "national faculty of medicine" of hundreds of volunteers and a staff of more than 400 who support the volunteers serving in the NBME membership and on its test development and other committees.

The mission of NBME is to protect the health of the public through state-of-the-art assessment of health professionals.  While centered on assessment of physicians, this mission encompasses the spectrum of health professionals along the continuum of education, training and practice and includes research in evaluation as well as development of assessment instruments.

The NBME develops and, with the Federation of State Medical Boards, co-sponsors the United States Medical Licensing Examination®, used by state licensing authorities to grant an initial license to most physicians in the United States.