In one of its last reports before closing operation on January 1, 1999, the PEW Commission called for tougher regulatory standards to protect healthcare consumers from incompetent healthcare professionals. Specifically, the group recommended that physicians and other healthcare professionals be required to continually prove their competence.

Former Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine), who chaired the Commission and recently served as a consultant in President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, stated that those who possess a healthcare license are as members of a club, and "once you are in the club, you are in forever."

The report states that the lack of periodic evaluations of caregivers has reduced the industry's accountability to its public by supporting practice monopolies that hinder access and lack national uniformity.

The Commission also called for national standardization of licensing laws and professional responsibilities and roles. This begs the question of what to do with new and emerging professions, and also runs counter to the system's stated goal of "opening up" old roles to allow for cross-training and role-sharing among caregivers using care teams.

The Commission called for a National Policy Advisory Board that would develop a national scope of practice and continuing competency standards. Model laws would then be given to states for their adoption.

Reaction from healthcare professionals has been mixed, with some concerns about 1970s' health planning revisited and the loss of the individual state's ability and right to deal with and solve its own problems.

Mitchell believes that such an advisory board will be established by Congress within three years.

Abstracted from "Front & Center", the newsletter of the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California - San Francisco.

Spring 99 index