MQA Annual Report 2020-2021

As Florida’s State Surgeon General, it gives me great pleasure to present the Division of Medical Quality Assurance (MQA) Fiscal Year (FY) 2020-21 Annual Report. MQA personifies the Department of Health’s (Department) values of Innovation, Collaboration, Accountability, Responsiveness, and Excellence in many areas. MQA acts as the liaison between the public, health care professionals, and their regulatory boards and councils to oversee health care professions. In FY 2020-21, MQA licensed over 120,000 qualified applicants. The MQA staff worked efficiently by licensing over 81 percent of those practitioners within one business day. An over 26 percent increase in new licenses over the previous year is a testament to MQA’s commitment to licensing qualified health care practitioners as quickly and efficiently as possible. MQA is continually working on using new technology, which helps improve processes to expedite licensing. I am proud of MQA for developing the state’s first Cognitive Virtual Agent (CVA) to effectively assist health care practitioners. The CVA can quickly answer a health care practitioner’s question regarding topics such as license renewal, address changes, or continuing education requirements. I want to thank all licensed health care practitioners personally for their tireless work over the past year. I would also like to thank MQA’s dedicated staff for going above and beyond, helping accomplish our mission to protect, promote and improve the health of all people of Florida. State Surgeon General’s Message Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD State Surgeon General 2 Annual Report and Long-Range Plan 2020-21