Credentialing of Hospitalists in Ultrasound‐Guided Bedside Procedures: A Position Statement of the Society of Hospital Medicine

• DOI: 10.12788/jhm.2917
• Publication Date: 2018-01-18T10:16:03Z
• Authors: Brian P. Lucas; David M. Tierney; Trevor P. Jensen; Ria Dancel; Joel Cho; Mahmoud El‐Barbary; Ricardo Franco‐Sadud; ; Nilam J. Soni
• Keywords: Credentialing; Specialty; Licensure; Credential

Ultrasound guidance is used increasingly to perform the following 6 bedside procedures that are core competencies of hospitalists: abdominal paracentesis, arterial catheter placement, arthrocentesis, central venous lumbar puncture, and thoracentesis. Yet most hospitalists have not been certified these procedures, whether using ultrasound or not, by specialty boards other institutions extramural their own hospitals. Instead, hospital privileging committees often ask hospitalist group leaders make ad hoc intramural certification assessments as part credentialing. Given variation in training experience, such straightforward “sign offs.” We thus convened a panel experts conduct systematic review provide recommendations for credentialing physicians procedures. Pathways initial ongoing proposed. A guiding principle both basic competence best made through direct observation performance on actual patients.