Take your education national with CFMC’s e-learning solutions

CFMC’s Office of Continuing Education supports its customers in taking their education national through the use of CFMC’s new product: online eLearning services. By combining our experience in continuing education content with superb technological resources, CFMC’s Office of Continuing Education now develops and executes high-quality online healthcare educational courses.

In today’s market, online education is a major asset to any healthcare organization’s continuing education program.

• National Audience
• Affordable
• Convenient Learning Resource—Available to Learners 24/7
• Accredited Programs Developed applying Adult Learning Principles
• Electronic Evaluations & Outcomes Measurement Tools
• Immediate Credit Certificate Delivery
• In-house Technical Assistance
• CME Consulting Services
• Live & Online Courses

Visit yourCEsource.org for more information about our continuing education services to award credit to physicians, nurses, psychologists, and others. You may also call Lorraine Pickrell at 1-800-950-8250, ext. 3372.

Engagement: Criteria for Accreditation with Commendation (C16-C22)

Integrating CME and Professional Practice Improvements

Part 1 of a series on the ACCME updated criteria, C16 – C22.

Criteria 16: The provider operates in a manner that integrates CME into the process for improving professional practice.

As many of you have heard, the ACCME has updated their essential elements for education by adding seven (7) new criteria over the past year. As your ACCME provider, CFMC is required to implement these changes in all educational programs that we joint sponsor to award credit. This article is focused on the first element. Our goal is to educate our joint sponsors so that they can develop their programs so that each activity meets the mandated criteria for CME.

When planning your activity, CME should be used as a tool to improve the professional practice. It is necessary to ensure that CME is part of the process, with demonstrated efforts toward practice improvements. CME programs that can be shown to influence, contribute to, or have a role in professional practice improvement would satisfy Criteria 16 of the updated ACCME Accreditation Criteria.

Activities should be developed “in the context of desirable physician attributes.”1 They should go beyond the lecture and take the education to the practice.2 To effect this—to integrate CME into the processes to improve professional practice, thereby complying with the above criterion—any number of creative and efficient strategies can be implemented, such as:

• In one’s CME activity application, incorporate physician core competencies. Within a spreadsheet, demonstrate these competencies versus the percentage of activities that address each of them.
• From a practice/point of care setting viewpoint, identify and address educational needs. Create a simulation or other creative educational method to link what is taught to the practice/point of care setting.
• Review existing guidelines and initiatives for quality and performance improvement. From that foundation, create tools to improve clinical practice, such as self-assessment programs or in-service exams.
• Integrate CME and CME leaders into organizational groups (e.g., case management, patient safety, or performance/quality improvement committees) that work toward physicians’ professional practice improvement. Connect CME with all relevant activities of professional practice improvement.
• Collaborate with health care organizations also committed to improving quality. It takes time and expertise to create and implement educational goals. CME and improvement initiatives interrelate, requiring tools, data, and resources others may already have an investment in.

Resources:

1. ”Updated_Criteria_TRIANGLE.pdf,” Donna Guadagnoi, June 2009. http://cmeleadersforchange.com/resources_10.html.
2. ”Leading Transformational Change in CME: Criterion 16 Best Practices,” Jeanne Cornish, RPh, et al. Almanac. Alliance for CME. Volume 31, No. 11. November 2009. pp. 2-6.
3. ”Engagement: Criteria for Accreditation with Commendation (C16 – C22)”. ACCME Accreditation Findings Based on the 2006 Accreditation Criteria. Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. pp. 9 ff.
4. Updated Accreditation Criteria. Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education. September 2006.

Variety in Professional Credit

CFMC is a national accredited provider with the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, Colorado Nursing Association, and American Psychological Association to provide credit. We also partner with other organizations on a regular basis to bring you professional credits for NAHQ, Social Worker, and Pharmacy to name a few. For more information, please call Lorraine Pickrell at 800-950-8250 ext 3372 or visit us on the web at www.yourCEsource.org.

CFMC Upcoming Educational Activities

Visit yourCEsource.org for a complete list of upcoming educational activities.