The Federation of State Medical Boards House of Delegates has adopted a new policy addressing patient safety and other issues related to physicians re-entering clinical practice after a significant leave of absence from medicine.

Separately, the board also created new policy guidelines on the appropriate use of social media and social networking sites by physicians.

Both determinations occurred during the FSMB's 2012 Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 28.

The FSMB is a national nonprofit organization representing all medical boards within the U.S. and its territories that license and discipline physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care professionals. It assists those state and territorial medical boards as they go about their mandate of protecting the public's health, safety, and welfare.

The report by the FSMB special committee on re-entry to practice encourages state medical boards to develop a standardized process for physicians and physician assistants to demonstrate their competence prior to re-entering practice after an extended absence from clinical practice.

"Physicians may take a temporary, extended leave from practice for many reasons, including personal lifestyle decisions, child caring, or to pursue research, administrative, or other professional interests not involving the clinical practice of medicine," says Humayun Chaudhry, president and CEO of the FSMB. "Regardless of the reasons for a prolonged interruption in clinical practice, it is critical for state medical boards to address physician and physician assistant re-entry as part of their mission to ensure patient safety."

Ensuring physicians are qualified to re-enter practice after a period of extended clinical inactivity is a complex undertaking with implications for educational, testing, monitoring, and regulatory processes, Chaudhry says.

To address such complexities, the FSMB's special committee developed 12 re-entry guidelines to provide medical boards with a framework of common standards and conceptual processes for physician and physician assistant re-entry. The guidelines include education and communications issues, determining fitness to re-enter practice, mentoring practitioners who want to re-enter the workforce, improving regulation of licensed practitioners who are clinically inactive, and the relationship between licensure and specialty certification.

Additionally, the policy notes that medical boards should be aware that physician re-entry may offer a means of addressing the anticipated national physician shortage.

"For a variety of reasons, including the economic downturn, many state boards are reporting an increasing number of physicians seeking to re-enter clinical practice," Chaudhry says. "Helping these physicians get back to patient care in an efficient manner, within a framework that ensures public protection, could provide an additional flow of physicians to help ease our national shortage."

Also, the organization's house of delegates adopted new policy guidelines on the appropriate use of social media and social networking sites by physicians.

Developed by the FSMB's special committee on ethics and professionalism, the Model Policy Guidelines for the Appropriate Use of Social Media and Social Networking in Medical Practice provide recommendations for state medical boards to consider in educating their licensees on the proper use of social media and social networking websites.

"Digital media has enormous potential for doctors and patients, allowing us more opportunities to share information and establish meaningful professional relationships," Chaudhry says. "However, physicians also need to be aware of how to maintain the same professional and ethical standards in their online activity as they do in the rest of their practice. Failing to do so can hurt patients and physicians' careers."

Violations of online professionalism are prevalent among physicians, says a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, conducted by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation clinical scholars at Yale University in collaboration with the FSMB, found that 92 percent of state medical boards in the U.S. have received reports of violations of online professionalism.

Developed by the FSMB to encourage physicians who use social media to protect themselves from unintended consequences, the new model guidelines include the following recommendations:

•Physicians should only have online interaction with patients when discussing the patient's medical treatment within the physician-patient relationship—and these interactions never should occur on personal social networking websites.

•Patient privacy and confidentiality must be protected at all times. Although physicians may discuss their experiences in nonclinical settings, they should never provide information that could be used to identify patients.

•Physicians should be aware that any information they post on a social networking site may be disseminated to a larger audience, and that what they say may be taken out of context or remain publicly available online in perpetuity.