This website provides tools to assist residency program directors, faculty, and administrators implement the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM's) practice improvement modules (PIMs) in residency programs. This material was developed through the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine-ABIM Foundation Resident-Faculty Practicum in Systems-Based Practice and Practice-Based Learning and Improvement.
In brief, PIMs allow individual physicians or groups of practitioners to document their involvement in a clinical quality improvement project. The PIM structure follows the traditional plan-do-study-act cycle by facilitating documentation of:
- Measuring care through chart audits, patient surveys, and a practice survey.
- Reflecting on care by reviewing and reflecting on a performance report.
- (Making changes to care processes is the responsibility of the physician and practice system. PIMs provides ideas for changing systems.)
- Delivering care in the changed health care system by reassessing charts and patients.
More information on PIMs is available on the ABIM website at www.abim.org/pim.