The newly redesigned American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (ABOS) website—www.abos.org—is now even more dynamic, thanks to a joint effort of the ABOS and the AAOS. New functionality on the ABOS website now makes it quick and easy for diplomates participating in the ABOS Maintenance of Certification (MOC) process to electronically submit continuing medical education (CME) credits earned from the AAOS—as well as from many of the specialty society programs accredited by the AAOS—directly to the ABOS.

The new feature simplifies recordkeeping for diplomates and eliminates the need to reenter CME data that are already recorded in a user’s online AAOS CME transcript, according to Jason Anderson, ABOS information technology/communications staff member.

“It saves time and ensures accuracy because diplomates don’t have to enter claimed credits earned from the AAOS on the ABOS website manually,” explained Mr. Anderson.

“The ABOS website can pull registered credits from the AAOS database and automatically populate the CME fields in a diplomate’s dashboard with a couple clicks of the mouse,” he added. Diplomates should note, however, that some CME credits awarded by educators other than the AAOS, however, still have to be manually entered on the ABOS website.

According to James A. Ogle, director of AAOS information services and member & customer relations, the new functionality on the ABOS website is “an excellent example of a team effort between two organizations.

“The overarching purpose of this effort was to reduce work for MOC participants, while improving data quality and streamlining the MOC process,” said Mr. Ogle.

How it works
After logging in on the ABOS homepage (www.abos.org), diplomates will see a page with the following four tabs:

• ABOS Status—General page that lists the user’s name and office address
• Profile—Detailed contact information, including office address and mailing address, phone number, and email address
• Sports—Information about the sports examination, including a link to the application
• MOC—Links to important information about MOC, such as the user’s 10-Year Cycle Grid and CME Summary

Users should click on the “MOC” tab and then select the “CME Summary” link from the menu on the left side of the screen. They can then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Continue” button to open the “Summary of MOC Continuing Medical Education” page (Fig. 1). At this point, simply click on the “Get CME Data from AAOS” button at the top of the page.

Before the transfer occurs, users have the opportunity to review their AAOS online transcript (Fig. 2). Diplomates can then click the “Import” button to transfer their CME credits directly to the ABOS’ data collection tools or the “Cancel” button to opt not to transfer the credits.

The ABOS also provides the following reminders at the top of the page:

• If you have already manually added any of the below records to your ABOS CME Summary, then duplicate records will be added through this import. It is your responsibility to delete any duplicate records before finalizing your CME Summary.
• Your AAOS CME credits are listed below. This import does not include non-AAOS self-reported credit and unclaimed credit in your AAOS Transcript. To view and update your AAOS CME credits, please visit the AAOS Transcript.
• Any records previously imported from the AAOS will not be overwritten. If a previously imported CME record is subsequently changed on the AAOS site, the change will not be reflected in your ABOS CME Summary unless you first delete the record from your ABOS CME Summary and then import CME records from the AAOS again.

Have questions? Contact ABOS
Anyone with questions about the ABOS website should contact ABOS technical support by phone at 312-944-0642 or via email at support@dataharborsolutions.com

For information about MOC, contact ABOS staff members by phone at 919-929-7103, or visit the ABOS online at www.abos.org

Jennie McKee is a staff writer for AAOS Now. She can be reached at mckee@aaos.org