Toward a More Responsive System of Professional Licensure

Abstract

With the increasing public demands for better assurance of quality in the provision of health services, the traditional role of state health professional licensing boards will undergo reexamination. The present system of health manpower licensure should be appropriately related to present and future attempts to regulate the quality of care. Rapid advances in medical knowledge and technology and changing health delivery patterns mandate that state licensing boards expand their traditional responsibility for initial entry into the profession by beginning to address the broader issues of continued competence of the licensed practitioner, manpower distribution, and interprofessional coordination. To do so may require fundamental changes in the structure and function of state licensing boards. But changes are inevitable if boards are to be responsive to new and innovative patterns in health care delivery.