Sara Lovell, CPCS
Education Coordinator
Providence Alaska Medical Center
 Understand
the history of CME and why it
had to change
 Discuss the 22 accreditation criteria to
ensure quality and value in a CME program
 What you can do to strengthen your CME
program
 Using CME to continuously improve quality
and patient care for your facility
Continuing Medical Education
 Medical
School
 Residency
 Fellowship
 CME
www.accme.org
700 ACCME –accredited organizations
Medical schools, nonprofit physician membership
organizations (i.e. medical specialty and state medical
societies, hospitals/ healthcare delivery systems,
publishers and education companies, government and
military organizations, and insurance and managed-care
companies.
43 State and Territory Medical Societies as Accreditors
for more than 1,300 local organizations, such as
community hospitals, state specialty societies, and
county medical societies, offering CME
In total, there are more than 2,000 accredited CME
providers, including organizations accredited by the
ACCME and by ACCME recognized accreditors
Each year accredited providers offer more than
125,000 activities across the country.
Accredited education activities draw more than 23
million health care professionals annually.
Activities include
• Live meetings and courses
• Medical Journals
• The Internet
 Call
from a drug rep
“Mr. Pushy”
 “The speaker would
love to bring his
knowledge to Alaska!”
 “Our company will pay
for everything!!!”
 “It’s a win win”
OR…
Administration
“My friend the expert”
Fishing trip to write off
CME to our physicians
Sound good???

2002 - Clinical Content Validation Policy




Ensuring that patient care recommendations are based
on scientific evidence. Policy issued regarding clinical
content validation in CME activities.
All recommendations involving clinical medicine in CME
activities must be based on evidence that is accepted
within the profession of medicine.
All scientific research used to support patient care
recommendations must conform to generally accepted
standards of experimental design, data connection and
analysis.
Providers are ineligible for ACCME accreditation or
reaccreditation if their activities promote treatments
that are known to have risks or dangers that outweigh
the benefits or are known to be ineffective in patient
treatment.

2004: Standards for Commercial Support:
Standard to Ensure Independence in CME
Activities

The ACCME safeguards CME’s independence and
freedom from commercial bias: Building on
guidelines first issued in 1992, the 2004 Standards for
Commercial Support: Standards to Ensure
Independence in CME Activities impose stringent
restrictions on CME providers’ interactions with drug
/device companies and other companies the ACCME
defines as commercial interests. The ACCME allows
providers to accept company funding for CME
activities, but prohibits any commercial influence,
direct or indirect, over CME content.
 2006


ACCME Accreditation Criteria
Criteria call on accredited providers to offer
educational activities that address physicians’
real-world practice needs, whether their scope
of practice is in clinical care, research, health
care administration, or other areas of medicine.
Accredited CME is now strongly positioned to
support US health care quality improvement
efforts and to align with emerging continuing
professional development systems

2006 ACCME Accreditation Criteria
CME activities go beyond giving physicians new
information—they help doctors translate knowledge
into action that improves their performance and
patient outcomes.
 CME providers evaluate the changes in physician
competence, performance, or patient outcomes that
result from their educational programs.
 The Accreditation Criteria foster leadership,
collaboration and system-wide change by rewarding
CME providers with Accreditation with Commendation
if (among other requirements) they participate in
quality improvement initiatives within their
institution or health care system.

 Criterion





1 – Mission Statement
CME purpose
Content areas
Target audience
Type of activities
Expected results



Changes in competence
Changes in performance
Changes in patient outcomes
 Competence

Knowledge into action
 Performance

Will this change their practice?
 Patient




Outcomes
Partnering with quality to track and trend
patient outcomes.
What are the results?
Did it work?
What is next?
 Criterion

Identifying PRACTICE GAPS of learners
 Criterion



2: Identifying Educational Needs
3: Designed to change
Competence
Performance
Patient Outcomes
 Practice
Gaps
 Where
you are
currently…
 Where
you would
like to be…
Being pro-active and identifying these
practice gaps and creating meaningful
ideas and solutions to close the gap
 Criterion
4: Matching content to learners
current and potential scope of professional
activities
 Criterion 5: Educational format appropriate
for the following

Setting, objectives, and desired results
 Criterion
6: Context of desirable physician
attributes


Institute of Medicine (IOM) competencies
ACGME competencies
Criterion 7: Independent of commercial interests
 Criterion 8: Appropriately managing commercial
support

If applicable
 Standards of Commercial Support


Criterion 9: Maintains a separation of promotion
from education


Vendors remain outside of the education room
Criterion 10: Actively promotes improvement in
health care and NOT proprietary interests of
commercial support
 Criterion
11: Analyzes changes in learners as
a result of the overall program’s
activities/educational interventions

Competence, performance, or patient outcomes
 Criterion
12: Analysis of program on the
degree to which the CME mission has been
met

Ongoing review of the Mission Statement
 Criterion
13: Identifies, Plans and
implements the needed or desired changes in
the overall program






Planners/ Teachers
Infrastructure
Methods
Resources
Facilities
Interventions, etc.
 Criterion
14: Identified program changes/
improvements that are needed to improve in
order to meet the mission are underway or
completed.
 Criterion 15: Demonstrate that the impacts
of the program improvements, that are
required to improve on the provider’s ability
to meet the CME mission, are measured.
Criterion
16: Integrates CME into
the process for improving
professional practice.
Criterion 17: Utilizes noneducation strategies to enhance
change
Criterion
18: Identifies factors
outside provider’s control that
impact patient outcomes
Criterion 19: Implements
strategies to remove, overcome
or address barriers to physician
change.
Criterion
20: Builds bridges with
other stakeholders
Criterion 21: Participates with in a
system framework for QI
Criterion 22: Influence the scope
and content of activity/educational
interventions
 Mission
Statement
 Needs Assessment
 Practice Gaps
 Plan with a Purpose
 Standards for Commercial Support
 Evaluate and follow up
 Track and Trend
 Resources in your own backyard
-Bob Moawad