Sleep Medicine Advisory Committee Meeting Summary | Fall 2025
The Sleep Medicine Advisory Committee held its fall meeting on November 7, 2025. Representatives from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and International Surgical Sleep Society (ISSS) joined for a portion of the meeting*.
The following is a summary of the fall meeting. Visit the ABIM Blog for reports of prior meetings.
Advisory Committee Composition
The Advisory Committee comprises physician representatives from six American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) Member Boards (referred to as the “cosponsoring boards”), as well as two public members: one with a patient or caregiver background in the field and one with healthcare team member experience. The Advisory Committee members are:
- Robert Stansbury, MD, Chair, American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM)
- Ritwick Agrawal, MD, ABIM
- Cristina Baldassari, MD, American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (ABOHNS)
- Jorge T. Gonzalez, MD, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN)
- Jennifer L. Martin, Ph.D. (public member)
- Sarah McConville, MD, American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA)
- John Poma, MBA, JD (public member)
- Adam Sorscher, MD, American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM)
- Erik St. Louis, MD, ABPN
- Laura Sterni, MD, American Board of Pediatrics (ABP)
ABIM Leadership Update*
In his pre-recorded leadership update, Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, President and CEO of ABIM and the ABIM Foundation, discussed progress on ABIM’s strategic initiatives, including:
- Enhancements to the Longitudinal Knowledge Assessment (LKA®), such as the possibility of expanded eligibility, developing focused versions in some specialties that will launch in 2026, and exploring additional focused versions in other specialties for the future
- Advancing and expanding ABIM’s research strategy with the appointment of Eric J. Warm, MD, MACP, as the inaugural Vice President of Research Strategy
- Supporting early career physicians and international medical graduates (IMGs) with the needs-based certification exam fee assistance program and the competency-based medical education pilot for IMGs
- Recognizing ABIM Board Certified physicians at key career milestones, such as attaining more than 30 years of certification, and an end-of-year wrap-up for LKA participants
- Advancing innovation in assessment through new technology and society collaboration
Erica N. Johnson, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs, represented Dr. McDonald in discussion with the Advisory Committee. In response to inquiries about how ABIM is engaging stakeholders across the internal medicine community, she highlighted patient- and public-centered initiatives as well as expanded early-career engagement. ABIM has added early career physician members to all governance bodies and held multiple in-person convenings with early career physicians to learn more about their experience with and perspectives on certification. ABIM plans to launch an Early Career Advisory Council in early 2026.
Members of the Advisory Committee expressed concerns about incorporating AI into item development, noting the potential pitfalls of hypothetical scenarios and outdated references. Dr. Johnson assured the Advisory Committee that AI-generated questions do not replace human item-writers, who number more than 1,500 and remain responsible for content grounded in authentic clinical practice. Lorna Lynn, MD, Vice President for Medical Education Research and interim Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer, added that both the assessment development staff and Approval Committees are actively developing guardrails addressing copyright, content security and the risk of unintended AI training from ABIM items.
The Advisory Committee also discussed individualized learning plans (ILPs). Dr. Johnson explained that ILP pilots could link LKA Progress Report data to educational resources and that AI may eventually enable more rapid and personalized feedback.
Dr. Stansbury posed a question about the CBME pilot special consideration pathway for IMGs, noting its relevance to sleep medicine. Dr. Johnson reported that more than 100 physicians have already achieved Board Eligibility through the pathway, with sleep medicine among the most represented specialties.
Diplomate Professional Profile*
The Sleep Medicine Advisory Committee reviewed the status of ABIM’s Diplomate Professional Profile (DPP), a survey that ABIM Board Certified physicians are asked to complete every five years via the Physician Portal. Data gathered from the DPP will inform exam blueprint updates and help ABIM understand what physicians are doing in practice and identify practice trends.
Dr. Lynn added that validation work indicates that physicians provide consistent, meaningful estimates to help capture how time is spent outside patient care.
Remarks from the Advisory Committee members included an emphasis on the need to understand multidisciplinary team structures, noting that sleep medicine often involves collaboration across neurology, pulmonary medicine, behavioral medicine and psychology. One member recommended including questions about affiliation with sleep centers, while another suggested identifying procedure-related variation across insomnia, pediatric sleep and other subdomains.
When asked whether DPP criteria would interact with Maintenance of Certification (MOC) requirements, Dr. Lynn clarified that the DPP informs the relevance of the blueprint but does not provide credit towards MOC requirements.
Advisory Committee members discussed how best to include data from neurologists, psychologists, family physicians and general pulmonologists within the sleep workforce, noting the value of such data for future workforce planning to support recruitment, training and advocacy for the specialty. Staff clarified that DPP data is used exclusively for ABIM assessment and governance—not for external credentialing decisions.
Health Equity Update*
ABIM remains firmly committed to advancing health equity, as reflected in a joint statement by the ABIM Board of Directors and the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees dated June 2025. ABIM continues to work in the areas outlined in the Equity Statement: developing health equity content for assessments, ensuring assessments are fair and conducting research to advance assessment strategies. ABIM also maintains collaborations with medical specialty societies working to advance health equity. During this session, staff highlighted both the progress achieved and the challenges that remain in ABIM’s ongoing health equity efforts.
Society Updates*
Society representatives from AASM, ISSS and the Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine provided updates on membership activities, training initiatives and advocacy efforts. The Advisory Committee and society guests discussed shared concerns, including legislative developments, home testing accessibility, workforce shortage and opportunities to strengthen collaboration across societies.
Advisory Committee members noted the importance of coordinating messaging and ensuring alignment between certification standards and evolving clinical practice environments. They also discussed pediatric sleep recommendations and the role of societies in responding to policy drafts containing scientifically unsupported assertions.
Nutrition in Assessment*
The Advisory Committee discussed the role of nutrition in patient care and assessment, emphasizing the importance of basing decisions to expand nutrition content in ABIM exams on sound scientific principles. Currently, the nutritional content in assessments varies across specialties.
The Advisory Committee members discussed areas where nutrition closely intersects with sleep, including obesity, metabolic syndrome, circadian rhythm regulation and lifestyle counseling.
Quality Agenda in Sleep Medicine*
Dr. Stansbury led the committee in small group work dedicated to developing a sleep medicine quality agenda. In 2021, ABMS—which comprises 24 medical certifying boards in the U.S., including ABIM and the other cosponsoring boards of the Advisory Committee—adopted new standards for continuing certification. One of those standards is a requirement for ABMS Member Boards to work with stakeholders, including professional associations and membership societies, to facilitate the development of discipline-specific quality agendas. The Specialty Boards and Advisory Committees discussed this in their spring 2023 meetings and subsequent meetings since.
The group discussed access to care, diagnostic stewardship, home testing pathways, behavioral sleep medicine integration and communication between multidisciplinary providers. Advisory Committee members reflected on how ABIM’s quality work intersects with evidence-based practice and with the needs of both generalist and subspecialist clinicians.
Society and other external organization representatives departed at this point in the meeting.
Sleep Medicine LKA Standard-Setting
Jerome Clauser, Ed.D., Vice President, Assessment Research and Innovations, and Kelli Treadwell, Ph.D, Manager, Psychometric Operations, outlined the standard setting process for the Sleep Medicine LKA, highlighting the roles of content evidence and policy considerations in determining recommended passing scores. The Advisory Committee voted to approve the Sleep Medicine LKA exam passing score based on the content-based score recommended by the standard setting panels.
AI Innovations
ABIM’s Emerging Technologies team shared an overview of ongoing initiatives to improve efficiency, enhance assessment and create the next generation of evaluation tools. The team provided more detail on key initiatives: operational innovations, individualized learning pathway generators and competency model mapping. In discussion, the Advisory Committee discussed the need for ongoing guardrails, thoughtful pilot work and active communication with physicians regarding the appropriate use of AI in assessment contexts.
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*Indicates society representatives were present for discussion on this agenda topic.
