(Tuesday, 4/2/2019) 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Room: Osceola Ballroom C
Matt Reiter, AAPM Lobbyist Consultant—What Can We Expect from The New Congress?
This session will provide an overview of the current federal legislative environment for healthcare issues. Mr. Reiter will talk about the post-midterm Congress broadly and then look at policy changes that may impact the clinical work of medical physicists. The presentation will discuss AAPM’s efforts to educate legislators on the benefits of the medical use of radioisotopes, and efforts to maintain patient access to radioisotopes. In addition, the session will address any draft bills introduced and/or anticipated that would be important to AAPM’s advocacy priorities, including source security and funding for low-dose radiation research. Mr. Reiter will offer some predictions for the year ahead and talk about how AAPM’s advocacy strategies might change in the coming months.
Jennifer Elee—CRCPD/AAPM Collaborations, Medical Event Reporting Update, and Current State Regulatory Issues
This presentation will provide an update on some Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD) collaborations with AAPM. Ms. Elee will examine issues that state regulators are concerned about that may impact medical physicists. In addition, the presentation will look at the CRCPD’s continuing efforts to create a national database of radiation medical events, providing a single point for all states to input events into a single database. The session will summarize recent data, offer analysis of radiation medical event data collected, and discuss the lessons learned so far. Ms. Elee has worked extensively on medical event reporting and incident learning. The presentation will address Ms. Elee’s work with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other radiation safety organizations on this issue and talk about the path forward.
Richard Martin—Regulatory Activities Impacting Medical Physicists
This presentation will examine current and trending regulatory issues that are important to AAPM’s advocacy at federal and state agencies, including radiation safety, source security, and patient access to radioactive sources. Mr. Martin will discuss the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on source security and its anticipated regulatory impact. The presentation will examine U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) activities, look at the NRC’s reaction, if any, to the GAO report, and provide a status update of the NRC’s re-evaluation of Training and Experience requirements for Authorized Users (AUs). The session also will look at amendments to the Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) regulations and discuss what the amendments will mean to the medical physics community. In addition, the presentation will address trending state regulatory issues and look at rulemaking interpreting “Qualified Medical Physicist� (QMP) and further defining scope of practice for medical physicists.
Kalpana Kanal, PhD, Trustee, American Board of Radiology - Getting Ready for the ABR On-line Longitudinal Assessment (OLA)
Medical Physicists participate in Maintenance of Certification (MOC) which is an integral part of the quality movement in healthcare. In 2012, the American Board of Radiology (ABR) implemented a new MOC process, known as Continuous Certification, for all participating MOC diplomates. The Continuous Certification method uses an annual review in March to evaluate all four MOC parts and fees and render MOC participation status. The four parts of MOC are: Part 1: Professionalism and Professional Standing, Part 2: Lifelong Learning and Self-Assessment, Part 3: Assessment of Knowledge, Judgment, and Skills and Part 4: Improvement in Medical Practice.
In this talk, I will focus on part 3. Part 3 requires passing the most recent summative decision for the Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA). In May 2016, the ABR announced its plans to move away from the 10-year exam to OLA. Within the OLA software, diplomates will be provided two question opportunities each week. Question opportunities will be available for four weeks to allow maximum diplomate flexibility. After opening a question, diplomates will be allowed a limited amount of time to answer the question and will learn immediately whether they answered correctly. In addition, they will receive a brief explanation of the correct answer, as well as a reference. I will demo the OLA software and how it works in this talk.
OLA is designed to have minimal impact on a diplomate’s workday and requires no time away from work or travel expense. The potential for retesting areas of weakness provides a further opportunity for diplomates’ self-assessment of their professional growth. OLA will be available to all diagnostic radiology diplomates in early 2019. OLA for radiation oncology, medical physics, and interventional radiology diplomates will follow in 2020.
Learning Objectives:
1. To understand the political environment impacting medical use of radiation, research funding, and health policy.
2. To learn about AAPM’s federal legislative advocacy related to medical use of radiation and access to radioisotopes.
3. To understand the CRCPD/AAPM collaborative activities.
4. To learn about state regulatory issues that may impact the practice of medical physics.
5. To understand the CRCPD’s event reporting activities and lessons learned from the CRCPD’s event data.
6. To learn about current regulatory issues impacting the practice of medical physics.
7. To understand issues related to medical use of radiation that may impact patient access to radioactive sources.
8. To understand issues recently addressed by state regulatory agencies and learn about AAPM’s state rulemaking advocacy efforts.
9. To learn about the important changes concerning the MOC Part 3: Assessment of Knowledge, and its transition to Online Learning Assessment (OLA).
10. To see a live demonstration of the OLA module in its current form and discuss its functionality and utility.
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