Summer 2000 Newsletter (Volume 17, No. 2)
Maryland’s Electronic Licensing Initiative Enters Its Third Year
By Harry Loleas, Associate Commissioner of Occupational and Professional Licensing

On February 1, 1998 the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation turned on phase one of its electronic licensing system and enabled licensed real estate professionals to renew their licenses over the Internet. Over the next 26 months, seventeen additional business occupations and professions were added to the system. An individual or a firm could apply for an initial license or reciprocal license, renew a license, make certain interim changes or apply for a certification/verification of licensure. Many applications and payments, such as license renewals involved completed transactions leading to the immediate mailing of a license. Other applications involved the filing of initial documentation and payment over the internet, with the transaction then placed in pending status awaiting the receipt of a third party document such as a transcript or verification. Over 130 separate Internet applications were developed for the 18 covered professions.

Since the project went on-line and began to receive attention, two questions have been posed most frequently about electronic licensing. First and foremost was how did you to secure the nearly two million dollars required to create a comprehensive system. Of equal concern to officials around the country is whether or not people use it.
(continued on page 4)

International Distance Education Standard Set
By Craig Cheatham, Executive Vice President of the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO)

We are all familiar with the changing face of education and pride ourselves in staying fluid enough to serve our communities and to make education accessible. In your state, province or territory, education has been delivered for both pre-license and continuing education purposes and your agency has been able to approve education experiences that were conducted with accountability and integrity. The citizens in your area have benefited from more knowledgeable industries and for this education providers can enjoy a good deal of the credit.

Over the last few years it has become quite evident that technology is having, and will continue to have, a significant
impact on education. Its impact on education delivery has been of particular concern as regulatory bodies have been approached by more and more program providers to approve seminars and courses offered in a variety of formats, everything from audio-only to on-line programs. Our licensees are applying much of the pressure, as their busy lives and flexible schedules have them demanding educational opportunities that are available at times and through methods more convenient to them.

It has been often said that necessity is the mother of invention. If you have  
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CLEAR's 2000 annual conference details, including online registration

Contents

President's Column

2
Doing the Math

3
International News

6
State Lines

9
Calendar

9


CLEAR is a dynamic forum for improving the quality and understanding of regulation in order to enhance public protection



Pam Brinegar, Executive Director
Scott Seymour, Editor

To print CLEAR News, please see page 10

Next page


Summer 2000

President's Column
by James L. Guffey

Summer is here and CLEAR is following its annual ritual of celebrating the season's change by moving into advanced planning for its annual conference. This year, there's something additional keeping CLEAR staff busy and I think you'll like the result. I'm both pleased and excited to announce that the members-only section of CLEAR's Web site will be made available before the conference. Initial online sections will include the long-awaited directory by profession and directory by jurisdiction. The initial directory will include the 50 most frequently requested professions and occupations, with others added following the annual conference. Other online sections will include a member message forum, a membership list, a speakers connection*, a consultant bank*, committee/board minutes, CLEAR policies and procedures, and lists of central agency administrators, national

 professional associations and  associations of state boards. All in all, pretty useful information for those of us on this side of the fence.

Resource Briefs, one copy of which is free to all members, now will be published online in the members-only section. Additional printed copies will still be available for sale, but one great advantage to the membership of publishing online is that they can now be made available individually without waiting for the entire series to be published. Another new project going on at CLEAR is a new organizational plan. If the Board approves the initial draft, we'll provide copies to membership by the time of the annual conference.

I'd like to make a personal appeal for each of you to try and attend this year's annual conference. We're making certain that the meeting will not only be useful, but a lot of fun as well. You've probably noticed in the flyer that, in response to your requests, the 

 conference will begin at noon on Thursday and run all day Friday and Saturday. This marks the first conference format change in 20 years. There are a few events I'd like to bring to your attention: Thursday night is a reception followed by a sock hop, which is a revival of a CLEAR tradition from years past; Friday night we'll celebrate that fact the 2001 meeting will be back in San Antonio; and Saturday, we'll have a general session featuring Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run With Wolves.

I am enjoying my time as your President and thank you for the opportunity to serve. If there are any issues you'd like to bring to my attention, please don't hesitate to contact me by sending an e-mail to guffey@dpor.state.va.us

*If you are a CLEAR member and wish to be included in either the consultant bank or the speakers connection, please send an e-mail to project coordinator Scott Seymour, letting him know your specialty subject areas. Of course, CLEAR will not make recommendations regarding the individuals listed in these two resources.

ARELLO ...(continued from page 1)

seen a real estate practitioner lately--the one with the cell phone in one hand and the laptop in the other--it surprise you that real estate was the industry among us to develop a program that we all can use to address our regulatory concerns while not getting in the way of our licensees' access to more information. Real estate regulators, through their industry association and their liaison with both higher education and continuing education providers, have researched distance education delivery and discovered that it has many strengths and can provide an excellent education experience when administered with integrity. Like you, they have also been exposed to enough to know that there are distance-delivered programs that claim to be educational and have very little, if any, integrity. A set of accepted standards by which to measure and evaluate these programs was needed. After an extensive search and many discussions with regulators from other states and provinces, and educators from various institutions; it was discovered that, apparently, a comprehensive set of standards for distance education

 delivery did not exist.

Real estate regulators took their  concerns to the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO)  and received approval to expend funds from a research fund to hire a qualified consultant and to support a task force in developing standards for the approval of distance education.  ARELLO has succeeded in this endeavor with the significant input and guidance of Dr. Robert Meyer, a Fulbright Scholar in Distance Education. By all reports ARELLO is quite proud of the results of the task force's extensive efforts. The Standards were completed in the fall of 1998, approved by ARELLO's Board of Directors, and made available for purchase. It is important to note that these standards are educational measures, and are not specific at all to the real estate industry.

An obvious complement to this body of work was the creation of an ARELLO Distance Education Certification program. Applicants for certification will fill out a course-assessment document and will receive the benefit of the 		 consultant's expertise to affirm or strengthen various aspects of their course. Certification has already been granted to courses now numbering in the hundreds. Reports from the Certification Council and the course developers have been very supportive and complimentary of the process.  Certified programs receive recognition on ARELLO's website at www.arello.net and are entitled to display the certified logo on their course materials and marketing media. A recent  ARELLO seminar on the standards and the certification in Las Vegas sold out within just two weeks, with the only registration form available on line with little advertisement. It seems interest continues to grow rapidly.

The certification is proving very valuable. Well-designed distance education courses have legitimacy and serve a valuable purpose. It is important to evaluate  these courses using a comprehensive and consistent set of criteria, i.e. ARELLO's standards, to protect the quality of education that we have enjoyed to this date. Because in many cases it would require the services
(continued on page 8)

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Summer 2000
Doing the Math
by Anne Paxton, Editor
Professional Licensing Report

The Harper’s Index, trademarked by Harper’s Magazine, doesn’t use much verbiage to comment on the state of the world. It simply lets the numbers speak for themselves. For example, the May 2000 Index reports that the ratio between the number of hotel rooms planned for the Las Vegas Venetian Hotel and the total number of hotel rooms in all of Venice is 1 to 1.

As we all know, statistics can tell everything, and they can tell nothing. But a quick excursion through the world-wide web reveals that when it comes to ironies, professional licensing can produce numbers that rank right up there with the best. So, with gratitude to Harper’s, here are some indices from the world of licensing, discipline, and enforcement in recent months.

100,000. Amount, in dollars, of unpaid child-support debts Ohio physician Stephen Sveda accumulated over three years, despite threats, warnings, and lawsuits (Source: Plain Dealer, 2/7/2000)

1.  Days Dr. Sveda took to repay child support debt in full after receiving a letter this year from the State Medical Board of Ohio revoking his license (Source: Plain Dealer, 2/7/2000)

12. Percentage decrease in number of malpractice suits filed against Massachusetts physicians in the two years after the state started posting malpractice histories on the Internet, despite physician predictions that public profiles would lead to more lawsuits (Source: Boston Herald: 3/1/2000)

71. Percentage decrease in the number of first-time takers of the certified public accountant exam between 1990 and 1998, when several states began 		 requiring 150 hours of college-level accounting study instead of 120 (Source: Accounting Today, May 2000)

25. Number of new states that will begin enforcing a 150-hour requirement for CPAs in the next decade (Source: Accounting Today, May 2000)

0. Correlation, in a study sponsored by the California State Board of Accountancy, which supports increasing the CPA educational requirement to 150 semester units, between the number of semester units CPA candidates complete and their performance on any section of the national exam (Source: National Association of State Boards of Accountancy)

0. Number of words in the California accountancy board’s website report of the study’s findings that describe the lack of relationship between semester units and exam performance (Source: http://www.dca.ca.gov/cba)

96. Number of cases randomly selected by the state auditor in which Illinois patients sued a doctor for negligence and reached an out-of-court settlement for more than $500,000 (Source: Chicago Tribune, 2/25/2000)

52. Number of audited cases that the state Medical Disciplinary Board closed without reviewing the patients’ medical record (Source: Chicago Tribune, 2/25/2000)

100. Percentage of several hundred mammograms that New York physician Padma Ram performed that the county health board ordered redone in 1993 because of their poor quality (Source: New York Post, 3/5/2000)

0. Number of days since 1993 Dr. Ram was barred from practicing medicine (Source: New York Post, 3/5/2000)

3,000,000. Value, in dollars, of the Texas home of Eric Scheffey, the physician who has paid the most in malpractice claims in the US and was known among medical residents as "Eric the Red" due to his patients’ tendency to bleed heavily during surgery (Source: Detroit News, 5/10/2000)

100. Percentage of the Texas medical board lay members who voted unsuccessfully to revoke Scheffey’s license  in 1995 (Source: Detroit News, 5/10/2000)

100. Percentage of the physician members of the Texas medical board who voted successfully to block revocation of Scheffy’s license in 1995 (Source: Detroit News, 5/10/2000)

82,000. Amount, in dollars, that the Idaho Board of Pharmacy spent on a computer system designed to track drug abuse (Source: Idaho Office of Performance Evaluation, June 1999)

72. Percentage of prescription drug-abuse complaints made to the board after the computer system was installed that were never investigated. (Source: Idaho Office of Performance Evaluation, June 1999)

20. Morgan Lamb’s percentile score on the California bar exam in February 1985, when he failed

99. Morgan Lamb’s percentile score on the California bar exam in July 1985, when he passed with the third highest score in the state

10. Number of years Laura Beth Salant lost her law license for posing as her husband Morgan Lamb during the California July 1985 bar exam so that he could get a passing grade (Source: Los Angeles Times, 10/4/99)

For a look at the real Harper’s Index—which invites you to add statistics of your own—go to http://www.harpers.org/harpers-index.

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Summer 2000

MARYLAND'S ELECTRONIC LICENSING ...(continued from page 1)

Funding
Most of our business occupations and professional licensing boards and commissions in Maryland receive general fund appropriations. In the general fund environment, state licensing agencies are not often the recipients of significant increases. 

Schools, public safety, health, environmental and economic development programs have first call on the lion’s share of available funding. In 1996 when funding an electronic licensing system first became an issue, Maryland was just emerging from a recession and five successive years of very tough budgets, where cuts were the norm.

Governor Parris Glendening took office in January of 1995. He established himself very quickly as a fan and advocate of the application of technology to government operations and the delivery of government services. During the 1996 session of the Maryland General Assembly, the Governor requested and the legislature acted to create the Maryland Technology Investment Fund to which State agencies could competitively apply for grants to fund innovative technology solutions. By having a mature proposal in place at exactly the right time, the Department received 1.5 million dollars from the Fund during the FY 97 and FY 98 grant cycles. These dollars were used to fund the state’s project development contract with IBM. The remaining $500,000 was appropriated from general funds over several fiscal years to cover hardware purchases and upgrades.

Usage
In the popular baseball movie "Field of Dreams" the unseen voice tells the main character, "If you build it they will come." A government official would likely respond, "can I get that in writing." No one wants their project written up in a magazine or newsletter as a great concept that failed because the target audience refused to use it. As we cycled through the occupations and professions we hoped for an average usage rate of 30% to 35% via the Internet.

CPA’s came in at 73%. Electricians, HVAC contractors, plumbers and Home Improvement contractors averaged at 50%. The lowest figure was barbers at 

20%. In the two years since real estate was first brought on to the system, numbers for the first renewal by group significantly exceed our expectations. 53% of renewing real estate licensees used the Internet. Design  professionals averaged about 54%. 

We used the implementation of electronic licensing to convert from a set date renewal for all licensees in an occupation to staggered licensing. Currently licensees renew every day of the year. The usage numbers for April of 2000 underscore the rapid evolution of the Internet in the daily life of a licensee in Maryland. Real Estate Appraisers were over 90% Internet renewals. CPA’s at 83%, Real Estate at 73%, everyone except barbers over 60% and even barbers nearly doubled their Internet usage in one year to 38%. Since the system was turned on, nearly 100,000 transactions previously done by paper have moved to the Internet. We are also beginning to see increased usage of the

other transaction options available over the Internet. These statistics confirm the wisdom of one key decision made early in the development process. We determined that

we would not mail renewing licensees the traditional paper applications they were used to getting. They received Internet instructions and their PIN number to conduct business electronically. The last section of the instructions indicated how to secure the paper form if you wanted to conduct business the old fashioned way. Considering that we are talking about 170,000 licensees, the amount of "flack" received for this approach was very modest. Importantly, neither elected nor appointed officials questioned or objected to the decision. We count this approach as central to our success in building the level of use we are seeing. 

This discussion has been limited to two main issues concerning Maryland’s Electronic Licensing Initiative. There are certainly other barriers to successful implementation that could be discussed and many other issues to be considered when contemplating a project of this scope. Those of us involved with it spent a very intense three years to get the job done. The bottom line is that if you can fund it and build it, your licensees will come and use it. Governor Glendening often cites Electronic Licensing as exactly where government needs to be in adapting E- Commerce to the delivery of service to our customers. It was worth the effort.

For more information about this project, please contact Harry Loleas at hloleas@dllr.state.md.us

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Summer 2000

Central Agency Administrators Meet in St. Louis

CLEAR's Central Agency Special Interest Group and CLEAR staff met in St. Louis May 24-26 to address a number of topics including: Quality Initiatives; Uniform Disciplinary Guidelines; Mobility Across State Lines; Cooperation Between Professional Licensing Agencies and Colleges, Universities and State Departments of Education; and, Technology Updates.

Jack E. Kotvas, Director, Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation was elected Chairman for 2000-2001 replacing Randall Singer, Division Director, Missouri Division of Professional Regulation, and Harry Loleas, Maryland Department of Licensing and Regulation was elected Vice-Chair.


Attendees included: Back row: Harry Loleas, Maryland; Karen Dunlap, Illinois; Adrianne Youmans, South Carolina;Charlotte Kinney, New Mexico; Jim Zukowski, Texas; Scott Seymour, CLEAR; Robert Semerena, Nebraska; Kelly Ward, New Mexico; Front Row: Russell Friedewald, Illinois; Bruce Douglas, Colorado; Ron Weaver, Washington; Jack Kotvas, Virginia; Randy Singer, Missouri; and, Pam Brinegar, CLEAR. Other attendees were Becky Dunn, Jerry Griffin and Kristi Wilson of Missouri.

Do We Have Your Web Address?

CLEAR now has the largest collection of links to professional and occupational regulatory boards, colleges and agencies on the World Wide Web, but it is still incomplete. New sites come online every day and, despite our best efforts to stay current, we may not know about your site. 

Please visit CLEAR's North American Web Page directory at www.clearhq.org/boards.htm and check to make certain we have listed your agency. 

If not, please submit your site's Web address by e-mailing Adam Parfitt at aparfitt@clearhq.org.

Public Notice

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has asked CLEAR to assist in informing the public about the Lead-Based Paint Pre-Renovation Education Rule (Lead PRE) that went into effect on June 1, 1999. The regulation requires renovators, working for compensation, to distribute a pamphlet to owners and occupants of most housing built prior to 1978 before starting work (Protect Your Family From Lead In Your Home). The regulation applies to residential property owners and managers, general contractors, special trade contractors including painters, plumbers, carpenters , electricians and maintenance personnel. For further information call 1-800-424-LEAD or visit the EPA web site at http://www.epa.gov/lead

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Summer 2000

International News
Recognition of Foreign Credentials Continued

An important object of regulators is to develop and maintain standards of qualification for entry into the profession. A challenge for regulators is the assessment of the educational qualifications of foreign-trained applicants. Many different measures have been developed and implemented on a provincial, national, and even international level to ensure that the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications is done in a fair, consistent and non-discriminatory manner. An example of one of these measures is the International Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region, also known as the Lisbon Convention. Canada signed the Lisbon Convention as a non-member state on November 4, 1997, and is in the process of ratifying it. Once it is ratified, it will become binding upon Canada.

Some of the key principles of the Lisbon Convention can be summarized as follows:

  • The preamble of the Lisbon Convention deals with promoting academic mobility, upholding and protecting the principle of institutional autonomy, emphasizing a fair recognition of qualifications, finding common solutions to practical recognition problems, and improving and making current regulation practice more transparent and adaptable to the current higher education situation.
  • Existing or future treaties that contain more favorable provisions dealing with the recognition of foreign qualifications take priority over the provisions in the Lisbon Convention.
  • Holders of foreign qualifications must have adequate access, upon request to the appropriate body, to an assessment of these qualifications.
  • Assessment of an application for recognition of foreign qualifications must be done solely on the basis of an applicant’s knowledge and skills without any discrimination on the basis of things such as an applicant’s gender, race, color, disability, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin.
  • The procedures and criteria used in the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications must be transparent, coherent, and reliable.
  • Decisions on recognition must be made on the basis of appropriate information on the foreign qualifications for which recognition is sought.
  • The responsibility to demonstrate that an application does not fulfil the relevant requirement lies with the body undertaking the assessment.
  • Decisions on recognition must be made within a reasonable time which is specified beforehand and is calculated from the time all necessary  information in the case has been provided.
  • If recognition is withheld, the reasons for the refusal to grant recognition must be stated and information must be given concerning possible measures the applicant may take to obtain recognition at a later stage.
  • If recognition is withheld or no decision is made, the applicant must be able to make an appeal within a reasonable time.

The ratification of the Lisbon Convention will raise many questions for regulators. Given the fact that [in Canada] regulators are considered to be self-governing and autonomous bodies, they will not be automatically obligated to implement the Lisbon Convention and ratification should not lead to any restriction of their autonomy. Nevertheless, the federal and provincial governments will be required to "take all possible steps to encourage the favorable consideration and application" of the provisions in the Lisbon Convention by all regulators. For regulators, this will probably involve an added source of scrutiny to ensure that they have non-discriminatory, transparent, coherent, and consistent procedures for the assessment and recognition of foreign qualifications.
This article is taken from ‘Grey Areas’ a publication of the law firm of Steinecke, Martin and Maciura.

Links
http://www.coe.fr/eng/legaltxt/165e.htm – Text of the International Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education in the European Region (Lisbon Convention)

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Summer 2000
INTERNATIONAL NEWS (Continued from page 6)

UK Solicitors May Be Admitted to the Bar

Debate continues as to whether the potential inclusion of Solicitors in the UK to the Bar will lead eventually to a merger between the two professions. The proposal to admit solicitor advocates who have qualified in the higher courts is likely to prove a contentious one with elements within the Bar, which have traditionally been protective of the differences between the professions.

The proposals, from the Working Group on the Future of the Inns of Court, have been backed by the Lord Chief Justice and the nation’s most senior law lord, Lord Bingham of Cornhill. The group suggests that a select number of solicitors be invited to join the Inns of Court (originally founded in the 13th Century). In endorsing the proposals, Lord Woolf said that such a move was in the public interest as it would make solicitors more likely to "conform to the standards of the Bar". Advocates of the change also suggest that permitting solicitors to join the Bar will ensure its continued existence. By charging new members £1,000 (US$1,500) as opposed to £85 (US$127) for barristers, the move would also lead to an increase in revenue for the Inns of Court.

Responding to the proposals, Robert Sayer, the President of the Law Society, which represents 80,000 solicitors in England and Wales (of whom about 1,000 are qualified as solicitor advocates) said, "this move is a clear sign that the outdated distinction between barristers and solicitors

is fading away." He added that "the real question is whether we really need two professions, and I don’t think we do." However, the chairman of the Working Group, Court of Appeal judge Sir Murray Stuart-Smith, stated that it would be "wholly wrong" to view the proposals as a move towards the merging of the two professions.

Note: Barristers and Solicitors
The legal profession in England and Wales has traditionally been divided between barristers and solicitors. Barristers, having been instructed by solicitors, held the exclusive right to present a case in court, until 1990 (under the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990) when solicitors acquired rights of audience. 

Barristers are regulated by the Bar Council (The General Council of the Bar of England and Wales) which is responsible for professional conduct and discipline, legal education and the validation of the institutions offering the Bar Vocational Course.

Links:
Bar Council – www.barcouncil.org.uk
Law Society – www.lawsociety.org.uk
The Inns of Court
The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn - www.graysinn.org.uk/index.htm
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple - www.innertemple.org.uk/
The Honourable Socety of Lincoln’s Inn - www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple - www.middletemple.org. uk/informat.htm
The text of the report of the Working Party on the Future of the Inns of Court (April 2000) can be found at www.middletemple.org.uk/innfutre.htm

Cemetery Regulators Hold Symposium
By Jerri Robinson, President, NCRA

On May 24, 2000 the North American Cemetery Regulators Association (NCRA), AARP and the Consumer Federation of America joined forces to present the first National Symposium on Death Care as a Consumer Issue in Washington, D.C. The symposium offered a unique opportunity for the different segments of the industry to share information about consumer education, consumer protection and their role in the processes of death and dying.

The format consisted of three panels followed by questions from the audience participants. The Industry panel included representatives from the National Casket Retailers Association, Cremation Association of North American, International Cemetery and Funeral Association, Monument Builders of North America and National Funeral Directors Association. Each panelist outlined their role in the process and the consumer complaint resolution processes.

The Consumer Information panel was made up of representatives from AARP, FAMSA - Funeral Consumers Alliance, National Cooperative Business Association and NCRA. 

Panelists in this segment outlined issues consumers need to be aware of and provided information about where to go for help in the event there is a dispute between the provider and the family. The Government and Regulatory Agency panel included the Federal Trade Commission,
(continued on page 8)

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Summer 2000
CEMETERY REGULATORS HOLD SYMPOSIUM (continued from page 7)

NCRA, National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators and the US Senate's Special Committee on Aging. The representative from the FTC discussed the forthcoming decision on expanding the Funeral Rule* to cover providers other than funeral homes (due out later this year) and the hearings recently held by Senator Grassley' s Committee. For more information please contact Jerri Robinson, President of NCRA at 502-696-5395 or write to 1024 Capital Center Drive, Suite 200, Frankfort, KY 40601

*What is the Funeral Rule?
The Federal Trade Commission's "Funeral Rule" requires, among other things, that funeral homes provide a general price list to consumers as soon as a discussion turns to funeral goods, funeral services, funeral prices or the overall type of funeral arrangements. This rule also provides that funeral directors cannot refuse to accept a casket from a third party provider and that they may not charge a casket handling fee when they do not provide the casket.

In the past, all caskets were customarily sold by funeral directors. However, today many cemeteries offer caskets and other funeral merchandise and services (such as vaults and opening and closing costs).In addition, there are now there are many store front casket retailers and caskets are available for purchase on the internet. These sellers are not currently covered by the Funeral Rule. Hearings were held last year to determine whether or not this rule should be expanded to cover ALL sellers of funeral services and merchadise.

 INTERNATIONAL DISTANCE EDUCATION ...(continued from page 2)

of a consultant who has particular knowledge of distance education delivery to measure a program's compliance with the standards and because those services are available through ARELLO's certification program, many jurisdictions are preparing to require that distance education courses have first attained ARELLO certification before applying for approval from their regulatory body.

Regulators of all types of industries are realizing that they lack the budget and expertise to review and accurately assess the new wave of educational products. By pointing to the international standards maintained by ARELLO, and even utilizing the certification service,  those charged with licensure, enforcement and regulation are finding that they can better serve the public without increasing their work load.

For those who are interested in the question of distance education, publications on both ARELLO's standards and the certification program are available through ARELLO and may be ordered by accessing www.arello.net or by calling Joe McClary at ARELLO at (334) 260-2902.

New in our Library

Proceedings of the Working Meeting of the Federal Credentialing Program, Albuquerque, NM,1999.

The Federal Credentialing Program has evolved through a series of demonstration 

projects into a standardized credentialing base for physicians and dentists in federal service. The Albuquerque meeting was one of the initiatives to expand the software to accommodate all federal departments and ultimately all federal licensed, registered or certified healthcare professionals.

The National Board of Chiropractic Examiners has issued the Job Analysis of Chiropractic 2000 that provides a methodical survey of the chiropractic profession as it is practiced in the United States. The new report provides comparisons of the current data with the results of the last report issued in 1993. A summary of the report may be viewed at http://www.nbce.org/nbce

Innovative Simulations for Assessing Professional Competence: From Paper-and- Pencil to Virtual Reality, Tekian et.al. ,Chicago, Il, 1999

A series of essays of interest to "(A)nyone involved in assessing professional competence…." that concludes "that simulation approaches yield more useful data to all concerned than do more traditional methods of assessing problem-solving, interpersonal, technical and communication skills."

Medical Council of Canada 1999 Annual Report. The annual report provides an overview of the activities of the Council in 1999 in order to facilitate portability and reciprocity of medical licenses. The Medical Council of Canada's web site is accessible at http://www.mcc.ca

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Summer 2000
  State Lines

New York
Three reports have recently been presented to the New York State Board of Regents by the Office of the Professions that are part of a series of discussions that deal with emerging issues affecting professional regulation.

Cross-Jurisdictional Professional Practice describes recent initiatives in telepractice, including the advantages and concerns related to the use of technology in the practice of the professions across state borders.

Telepractice provides an overview of the key issues that involve telepractice, and gives examples of its use nationally.

Corporate Practice of the Professions answers such questions as who can legally provide services to the public; whether a non-licensee may own all or part of a

professional practice; and, whether a general business corporation may employ a professional licensee to provide professional services to the public.

Each of these reports may be accessed at www.op.nysed.gov/news.htm

Oregon
Oregon has established the Health Licensing Office as an independent agency and the Senate confirmed Susan K. Wilson as Director of the new agency. The Legislature separated the Health Licensing Office from the Department of Human Services, Health Division and the Health Related Licensing Boards. The Office will continue to direct the operations of the following boards: Board of Athletic Trainers; Body Piercing Licensing Program; State Board of Cosmetology; State Board of Denture Technology; State Board of Direct Entry Midwifery; Advisory Council on Electrologists and Permanent Color Technicians and Tattoo Artists; Advisory Council on Hearing Aids; Respiratory 

 Therapist Licensing Board; and, Sanitarians Registration Board. Inquiries may be directed to the Health Licensing Office, 700 Summer St. NE, Suite 320, Salem , OR 97301-1287.

Vermont
The Vermont Office of Professional Regulation's annual report is online and
may be viewed by visiting
http://vtprofessionals.org/opr
/pubs/annual/18/rpttxt.htm
The report contains information on all 37 professions regulated by the office as well as other administrative categories including receipts and expenditures, complaint activity, examinations and numbers of licensees.

There are also several sunrise reports available at
http://vtprofessionals.org/downloads/
sunrptdwn.htm
Professions reported on include speech and language pathologists and
audiologists, respiratory therapists, certified lay midwives, alcohol and
drug counselors, and electrologists.
  Calendar

2000
BASIC & SPECIALIZED NCIT September 11-13
Wyndam Hotel
305-374-0000 
Miami-Biscayne Bay, Florida

CLEAR Annual Business Meetings
September 12-14
Wyndam Hotel
305-374-0000
Miami-Biscayne Bay, Florida

 CLEAR Annual Conference
September 14-16
Wyndam Hotel
305-374-0000
Miami-Biscayne Bay, Florida

BASIC NCIT
October 2-4
Sacramento, California

2001
CLEAR Mid-year Meeting
January 3-6
Town and Country Resort Hotel
619-291-7131
San Diego, California

(Continued on page 10)

   Links of the Quarter

The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) and the Healthcare Integrity and Protection Data Bank (HIPDB) may be accessed at http://www.npdb-hipdb.com

The National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care offers links to Child Care Licensure Regulation in the US at http://www.nrc.uchsc.edu/states. html

Professional Examination Service (PES) has announced a call for applications for their 2000 Grant Awards Program. Information available at http://www.proexam.org/grant00a.htm

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Summer 2000
(continued from page 9)

MEMBER ACTIVITIES

2000

Annual meeting of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN)
August 8-12
Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
800-233-1234
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Annual meeting of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA)
September 17-20
Westin Copley Place
800-228-3000
Boston, Massachusetts

Seventh Annual State Regulatory Workshop sponsored by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy (NBCOT)
Key Bridge Marriott Hotel
September 22-24
800-228-9290
Arlington, Virginia

Annual Conference of the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO)
October 14-17
Little America Hotel
801-596-5807
Salt Lake City, Utah

 Annual Conference of the International Association of Transportation Regulators (IATR)
November 5-8
Music City Sheraton
800-325-3535
Nashville, Tennessee
Information at http://www.iatr.org

Annual meeting of the Citizen Advocacy Center (CAC)
November 2-4
Hotel Edgewater
Seattle, Washington

Annual meeting of the National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA)
November 29-December 2
Fontainebleau Hilton Resort & Towers
Miami Beach, Florida

2001
The Federation of Associations of Regulatory Boards (FARB)
February 16-18
Forum 2001
Tradewinds Sirata Beach
727-363-5100
St. Petersburg, Florida

 

Calendar of Events

CLEAR Members

If you would like to list your upcoming events in the Calendar of Events, please send the information to Scott Seymour at sseymour@mis.net

 

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