Protecting the public from egregious wrongdoing by physicians: Results from a policy implementation workshop with state medical boards

Abstract: State medical boards (SMBs) are tasked with protecting the public through licensing, regulating, and disciplining physicians. There is approximately eight-fold variation by SMBs in severe disciplinary actions taken against physicians who engage in egregious wrongdoing (e.g., sexually abusing patients, performing unnecessary invasive procedures, improperly prescribing controlled substances). Our team’s prior work identified 56 consensus-based recommendations to help SMBs adopt more uniform and effective policies to better protect the public. To support planned, intentional, nationwide adoption of these recommendations by SMBs, we are partnering with the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) to design, deliver, and evaluate the outcomes of a policy implementation workshop for members from all SMBs with the capacity to put these recommendations into practice. At the end of the workshop, SMB members will have developed a policy implementation action plan. We will follow up with SMBs about action plan implementation several months after the workshop.

We will report on workshop design, interviews with members of SMBs that have already been successful implementing certain recommendations, and data from the pre- and post-workshop surveys. Specifically, we will discuss experiences and lessons learned from early-adopter boards to be shared with other boards. The pre-workshop assessment will ask about interest in and anticipated barriers to adopting certain recommendations. The immediate post-workshop assessment will measure implementation intentions and views about the workshop. The long-term post-assessment will measure actual and planned implementation. Our approach mobilizes change-makers within SMBs to implement new or revised board policies to more effectively and uniformly protect patients.