Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine
What prompted you to accredit your lab initially?
I have been board-certified in EDX medicine since beginning practice in about 1995. When the AANEM introduced the program to accredit EMG labs, I felt it was another opportunity to prove my excellence in EMG. In a competitive healthcare marketplace, where the expenditure of health care dollars is always being scrutinized, I found it important to show to the medical community my level of commitment to providing high-quality and cost-effective EMG studies to not only our growing group but to all providers in our region. Currently, our group has grown to nearly 75 musculoskeletal physicians and surgeons who rely on quality EMGs to maintain their high level of patient care. Our group is fortunate to have two board-certified electromyographers to serve the largest MSK group in the region.
What value or benefits have you seen from accreditation?
Our group has the only accredited lab in the region allowing us to stand out in the eyes of payers and providers alike.
How did going through the accreditation process help you shore up or improve processes and procedures? Did you make any patient report improvements? If so, which ones?
The process involved reassessing all the protocols that we have been doing for many years, and in doing so, discover different ways to accomplish some of the same studies.
What did you learn by going through the accreditation process?
There are a lot more than just a few studies available to the electromyographer.
What was the most challenging portion of the application?
Certifying the integrity of our many EMG machines.
Did anything about the accreditation process surprise you? If so, what?
The attention to detail by the accreditation committee in the application was surprising. I thought it was going to be simpler than what I encountered.
Why should others accredit their laboratory?
To show to other providers that their study is of the highest quality, consistent with national standards.
Additional comments:
While the practice of medicine relies more and more on physician extenders, and where the neurological exam has become de-emphasized in the routine MSK medical evaluation, a thorough neurodiagnostic evaluation by a highly skilled elctromyographer is becoming more and more important.
