Performance of state medical boards: implications for hospitals and health systems.

The accountabilities and operations of state medical boards can have significant implications for hospitals and health systems in terms of their efforts to ensure quality care and patient safety. This study examined the performance of state medical boards and the reasons for variability in board performance by identifying factors impacting the performance of state medical boards in terms of physician discipline and those variables most critical to medical board performance. The findings suggested that increasing staff support and appointing lay board members would lessen the degree of variability in the performance of state boards although there remained a significant amount of variance to be explained.