Cardiovascular Board Meeting Summary | Spring 2026
The Cardiovascular Board held its spring meeting on May 14, 2026. Representatives from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) joined for a portion of the meeting*.
ABIM and the Cardiovascular Board gratefully acknowledge the service of Leslie Beth Sossoman, DNP, ACNP-BC, CV-RN, CPHQ, whose term ended on June 30, 2026. Dr. Sossoman first joined the Specialty Board as an interprofessional member in 2020.
The following is a summary of the spring meeting. Visit the ABIM Blog for reports of prior meetings.
ABIM Leadership Update*
Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, President and CEO of ABIM and the ABIM Foundation, discussed progress on ABIM’s strategic initiatives, including:
- Customized learning plans via collaboration with the American College of Physicians (ACP) that launched in February. A new feature in ACP’s Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP) allows subscribers to import their most recent ABIM internal medicine assessment results directly into their account, which will suggest learning tools to build a tailored plan.
- Enhancing early career physician engagement through an interactive online community platform, tailored resources for residency programs and the creation of an Early Career Committee, which will begin meeting in July.
- Progress of the Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) Special Consideration Pathway pilot for International Medical Graduates (IMGs), which has received more than 160 applicants to date. ABIM is using the pilot to test a model for board eligibility using a CBME framework, while removing barriers for physicians who meet the same standards as peers who completed accredited internal medicine training.
- The recently expanded blueprint review process, which involves a schedule of plans for updating blueprints in every specialty over the next several years. Practicing physicians in each specialty will continue to be invited to participate in updating each blueprint to reflect current practice.
- Recent communications about the importance of exam integrity and, in particular, the appropriate use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the Longitudinal Knowledge Assessment (LKA®).
Related to the CBME pilot and its likely impact on the cardiology workforce, Dr. McDonald added that of the physicians who have entered the pilot, the highest representation among subspecialties is in nephrology, geriatrics and infectious disease. However, it was also noted that the combination of the tertiary disciplines of adult congenital heart disease (ACHD), advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology (AHFTC) and interventional cardiology makes cardiovascular disease and its subspecialties the most highly represented composite discipline in the pilot. In response to a question about other societies engaging with ABIM to develop customized learning plans, Dr. McDonald responded that ABIM is ready to expand to any organization willing to engage.
One member asked how ABIM is thinking about future assessment for physicians in the AI era, and Dr. McDonald described ABIM’s work exploring physician-patient communication assessment using a number of frameworks, including the Calgary-Cambridge framework. Related to exam integrity and LKA participants sharing assessment content, he noted that the vast majority of participants in the LKA are using resources appropriately. (For more information, visit the ABIM Blog.)
Developing a Quality Agenda in Cardiovascular Disease*
As a next step in the development of a discipline-specific Quality Agenda, Specialty Board members engaged in breakout discussions to further refine the aims, drivers and relevant society strategies agreed upon by the Specialty Board and specialty society colleagues. The Quality Agenda is one of the standards for continuing certification issued by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) for all Member Boards in 2021. This standard requires that Member Boards “facilitate the process for developing an agenda for improving the quality of care in their specialties.” (ABMS Standards for Continuing Certification, p. 15: Requirements for Member Boards, 18. Quality Agenda.)
Cardiovascular Board members broke into four groups to address proposed aims for the Quality Agenda.
- On Aim 1, “Enhanced Cardiovascular Disease Patient Experience,” the group recommended highlighting patient empowerment, addressing native-language educational materials, the distinction between patient-centered and patient-driven care, wrap-around services and the unresolved question of professional responsibility for unsolicited patient-generated data from wearables.
- On Aim 2, “Improve Health at the Population Level,” the group emphasized integrated, multidisciplinary care; ACC and American Heart Association (AHA) registries; prescribing and deprescribing knowledge; genetic counseling for cardiomyopathy and heart failure; and a recommendation to address the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
- On Aim 3, “Address Cardiologists’ Work-Life Balance to Reduce Burnout,” the group identified competing health system and clinical priorities as a key driver and emphasized the value of society statements supporting physician well-being, citing ACC’s work in this arena as well as SCAI’s advocacy for lead-free interventional equipment.
- On Aim 4, “Reducing the Cost of Cardiovascular Care,” representatives of ACC and SCAI summarized their organizations’ contributions including registries, evidence-based guidelines, appropriate use criteria and the migration of procedures from hospital to ambulatory settings. The group also highlighted the need to consider costs as part of new therapies associated with cardiac clinical trials and a recommendation to build cost analysis into the science of clinical trials.
Review the full Cardiovascular Disease Quality Agenda.
Physicians Engaging in Improving Health and Health Care*
ABMS Standard 19 (ABMS Standards for Continuing Certification, p. 16) focuses on increasing the proportion of physicians engaged in improving health and health care, including quality improvement and patient safety. It requires ongoing reporting, increased participation and collaboration to ease engagement and reporting burdens. ABIM is not reintroducing a requirement for individual diplomates to participate in quality improvement activities. Instead, ABIM will look to increase engagement in and recognition of quality improvement activities through existing pathways. In addition, ABIM will develop and implement new opportunities to recognize and reward diplomate engagement in quality improvement under the expanded definition.
Laura L. Sessums, JD, MD, Chief Medical Officer for ABIM, reviewed the five current pathways by which ABIM recognizes quality improvement activity. The Specialty Board members discussed proposed new definitions of quality improvement with a focus on both brevity and clarity. Dr. Sessums noted that conversations on this topic will continue during the fall meetings.
ACHD Blueprint Review*
Staff presented the proposed changes for the ACHD Certification Exam Blueprint. The proposal restructures the blueprint around six primary content domains aligned with the 2025 and 2018 American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF)/AHA guidelines: general principles, shunts, left-sided lesions, right-sided lesions, complex congenital heart defects, and coronary and vascular anomalies. In response to ACC feedback that topics such as arrhythmias, pulmonary hypertension, acquired cardiovascular disease and genetics might receive insufficient visibility where they currently appear at the third blueprint level, the Approval Committee developed a cross-content topics list to appear before the lesion-based blueprint.
Andrea M. Russo, MD, Chair of the Cardiovascular Board, asked about coordination across cardiology guidelines and representatives of the Approval Committee—both members of the ACCF/AHA guideline writing committee—explained the committee’s active review of other society statements while citing timing and sourcing rules that can produce apparent discrepancies. They also agreed to a request that embryology and genetics be listed separately. The Cardiovascular Board unanimously approved the proposed ACHD blueprint changes as presented.
The proposed changes will be submitted for public review by ACHD diplomates in fall 2026 with an expected publication of January 2028, effective for the fall 2028 exam administrations.
Procedural Requirements for Certification in Interventional Cardiology*
Dr. Russo introduced a discussion of the procedural attestation requirement for maintaining ABIM Board Certification in Interventional Cardiology, which was last reviewed in 2017. Currently, the requirement is for an attestation every five years, with verification by a third-party attester, and offers both a high-volume pathway (100 procedures) and a low-volume pathway (25 consecutive procedures as the primary operator with outcomes documentation). Staff reported that 84% of attestations have been completed since the 2018 transition to the five-year cycle and that the share of physicians selecting the low-volume pathway has steadily increased. Staff also noted that this procedural reporting requirement for continuing certification was instituted by the discipline itself in 2017 and is unique within ABIM to interventional cardiology and, as SCAI emphasized, is not used in continuing certification in other medical, surgical or radiologic specialties.
SCAI representatives Joaquin E. Cigarroa, MD, MSCAI, President-Elect, and John C. Messenger, MD, MSCAI, Vice President, presented SCAI’s position that the interventional cardiology procedural volume reporting requirement should be reconsidered in light of the evolution of the field, current data and modern competency frameworks. Dr. Cigarroa noted that interventional cardiology has evolved substantially from its origins in balloon angioplasty and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) into a broader discipline that now includes coronary, structural and peripheral practice, and that the procedural attestation requirements have not kept pace with that evolution. He stated that procedural volume reporting requirements in Maintenance of Certification (MOC) are increasingly burdensome, especially for aging physicians who transition away from catheterization lab practice, physicians practicing in rural communities and the growing share of diplomates who must rely on the low-volume pathway.
Dr. Messenger reviewed registry-based and observational data presented by SCAI to support the position that procedural volume thresholds are not a valid surrogate for competence or performance. He highlighted National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) data showing that annual operator PCI volume has declined over time, with a median volume of 59 PCI cases per year and 44% of operators performing fewer than 50 PCI cases annually in the 2009 – 2015 period. He also reviewed NCDR and New York State data illustrating the absence of a clear, defensible procedural threshold that reliably distinguishes competent from non-competent operators and emphasized that outcomes and experience appear to accrue gradually and are influenced by multiple factors beyond annual procedure counts. Dr. Messenger speculated that procedural volumes have continued to decline and concluded that the available evidence does not support maintaining fixed procedural volume floors for continuing certification.
He further stated that the current volume-based attestation model is limited because it is binary, does not directly assess quality or patient outcomes, overlooks important practice variation across interventional cardiology and duplicates functions already performed through hospital credentialing and privileging. Drs. Cigarroa and Messenger emphasized that direct assessment of procedural competence and performance is already conducted locally through credentialing and privileging, Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (OPPE), Focused Professional Practice Evaluation (FPPE), peer review and registry-based benchmarking. They argued that these local processes are more valid and more appropriate than a central procedural attestation requirement for ABIM MOC.
Dr. Cigarroa cited published professional competency frameworks, including the 2013 ACCF/AHA/SCAI competence statement and the 2023 ACC/AHA/SCAI Advanced Training Statement on Interventional Cardiology, as evidence that modern interventional cardiology competency is multidimensional and should be assessed through outcomes, peer review, appropriateness, quality improvement participation and the full scope of contemporary practice rather than by procedural counts alone. He recommended elimination of the procedural volume reporting requirement in Interventional Cardiology MOC and expressed willingness to collaborate with ABIM and the broader cardiovascular community on a transition away from volume-based reporting. Dr. Cigarroa concluded by highlighting the strength of the scientific data presented and cited the demographics of an aging interventional workforce, declining procedural volume and the upcoming 2027 – 2028 attestation waves as important considerations.
Erica N. Johnson, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Senior Vice President for Academic and Medical Affairs, reaffirmed that ABIM follows a longstanding stakeholder engagement and survey process for major policy changes affecting physicians. She noted that this process would include a survey to gather community sentiment and identify potential blind spots, after which the discussion would return to the Cardiovascular Board for review of the survey data and a formal vote at a future meeting.
Oversight of Training in Cardiology*
Dr. Johnson and Michael Melfe, Director, Academic Affairs, presented information on the oversight of cardiology training and its tertiary subspecialties. Mr. Melfe reported a 100% program and position fill rate in the 2025 NRMP cycle for cardiovascular disease, with an application-to-position ratio of 1.6. He presented match and board eligibility data for ACHD, AHFTC, clinical cardiac electrophysiology (CCEP) and interventional cardiology, showing lapse in board eligibility rates under 6% across disciplines. He also reviewed the CBME pilot and two cardiology-relevant Advancing Innovation in Residency Education (AIRE) pilot programs that allow double-counting of training time in cardiology, one in cardiology-CCEP and one in cardiology-ACHD. Participants emphasized the importance of data that can support oversight, identify emerging risks and inform future recommendations.
Oversight of Cardiovascular Disease Assessments*
A large part of the purview of the Specialty Board is oversight of the assessments. Each year, ABIM staff psychometricians examine data from assessments in each discipline. Members received population-level information, assessment participation updates and performance data to support informed decision-making and future assessment strategies.
ABIM staff psychometricians presented certificate population, pathway selection, demographic and performance data across cardiovascular disease and its tertiary subspecialties. For the cardiovascular disease discipline, they reported that 58% of physicians who chose an assessment in their due year opted for the LKA, 22% opted for the ACC/ABIM Collaborative Maintenance Pathway and 20% chose the traditional, 10-year MOC exam. They noted an upward trend in female participation in cardiology initial certification, which some members suggested linked to changes in the U.S. medical school applicant pool. They also reported alternate pass rates across the cardiovascular subspecialties averaging in the high 90th percentiles.
Society representatives departed at this point in the meeting.
Candidates for the Approval Committees
Specialty Boards are responsible for selecting incoming members and chairs of the Approval Committees in advance of new terms that begin in July of each year and as seats become vacant for other reasons. Following a review of the candidate materials and a candidate interview, the Specialty Board appointed new members of the following Approval Committees:
- Cardiovascular Disease LKA Approval Committee: Bhaskar Arora, MD, FASE, and Rohit Moudgil, MD, Ph.D., FACC, FAHA
- Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Traditional, 10-Year MOC Exam Approval Committee: Prashant Dattatraya Bhave, MD, FACC, and Reginald T. Ho, MD
- Interventional Cardiology LKA Approval Committee: Konstantinos Dean Boudoulas, MD, and Anwar Tandar, MD, FACC, FRCPC
They also appointed Syed T. Rab, MD, as the new chair of the Interventional Cardiology Traditional,10-Year MOC Exam Approval Committee.
Read about all new governance appointments as of July 1, 2026.
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*Indicates that society representatives were present for discussion of this agenda topic.
