News & Notes

Abstract

The FSMB has released a video recording of “Understanding the VA’s National Standards of Practice,” a webinar it hosted on September 8, 2022.The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) affirmed its right under the US Constitution to establish national standards of practice, a standardized set of services that all health care professionals in each occupation can perform if their facility performs such services and they have the proper education, training, and skill. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is working to develop these national standards of practice to ensure safe, high-quality care for the nation’s veterans in VA’s integrated health care system. National standards of practice are designed to increase health care access, improve health outcomes for veterans, support staff in moving across VA, and provide VA staff support to the country in disaster and times of national crisis. During this webinar, the VA informed the state medical board community about these standards and described the formal process for sharing input.The webinar was moderated by Lisa A. Robin, MA, FSMB’s Chief Advocacy Officer, and the speakers were Elizabeth Brill, MD, MBA, FACOG, Deputy to the Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Clinical Services Integration, and M. Christopher Saslo, DNS, ARNP-BC, FAANP, Acting Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Patient Care Services. The recording is available at https://www.pathlms.com/fsmb/courses/46090.Recognizing the importance of the role of state medical board service, the nation’s state and territorial medical boards have launched a program in partnership with the FSMB to better educate and prepare new members of state medical boards for their duties as public servants.FSMB’s Workgroup on Board Education Service and Training (BEST), working with the state boards, developed a variety of new resources to support the roles and responsibilities associated with board service.At the core of these materials is “Understanding Medical Regulation in the United States,” a series of online multi-media educational modules that examine various components of service on a state medical board.Nine modules are planned for the series, the first three of which are now available. Content in the modules is intended to provide a general overview of medical regulation, supplementing more specific and detailed information about regulation in the states in which new board members will assume their duties.Users of the modules can watch them online or download a text version of the narration. The modules are available at https://www.fsmb.org/education/understanding-medical-regulation-in-the-united-states/The Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP), which is the federally designated National Telehealth Resource Center for Policy, has released its 10-year anniversary report. For the past decade, CCHP has tracked and followed policy development for all 51 jurisdictions in the United States (District of Columbia included) as well as at the federal level. This past decade has also represented the period that encompasses some of the most significant telehealth policy developments seen to date. In celebration of this ten-year milestone, CCHP is offering this overview of the development of telehealth policy from 2012 – 2022.The report is meant to provide an overview of some of the more significant developments that CCHP has been able to capture and follow over the years given its unique position. The document serves as a report of what has transpired, as well as a means of setting the stage for the next chapter.The report is available at https://www.cchpca.org/resources/a-decade-of-telehealth-policy-our-10-year-anniversary-report-2/