What is C(M)E?

C(M)E consists of educational activities that maintain, develop or increase the knowledge, skills, professional performance and relationships that a healthcare professional uses to provide services for patients, the public or the profession. The content of C(M)E is the body of knowledge and skills generally recognised and accepted by the profession as within the basic medical sciences, the discipline of clinical medicine and the provision of health care to the public (HOD policy #300.988)

Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/default/files/media-browser/public/cme/pra-booklet_0.pdf

What is CPD?

Continuing professional development (CPD), or continuing physician professional development (CPPD), includes all activities that doctors, nurses and dentists undertake, both formally and informally, including C(M)E, to maintain, update, develop and enhance their knowledge, skills and attitudes in response to the needs of their patients.

What is an accredited C(M)E?

Accredited C(M)E is defined as: 

Non-promotional learning activities are certified for credit before the activity by an organisation authorised by the credit system owner.

OR

Non-promotional learning activities for which the credit system owner directly awards credit.

Accredited C(M)E providers may certify non-clinical subjects (e.g. office management, patient–physician communications, faculty development) for credits as long as these are appropriate to a healthcare professional audience and benefit the profession, patient care or public health. C(M)E activities may describe or explain complementary and alternative healthcare practices. As with any C(M)E activity, these need to include a discussion of the current scientific evidence that supports the practices. However, education that advocates specific alternative therapies or teaches how to perform associated procedures without scientific evidence or general acceptance among the profession that supports their efficacy and safety cannot be certified credits.

Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/default/files/media-browser/public/cme/pra-booklet_0.pdf

Which activities are excluded from accreditation?

Activities ineligible for accreditation:

C(M)E credits may not be claimed for learning that is incidental to the regular professional activities or practice of a health professional, such as learning that occurs from:

• Clinical experience

• Charity or mission work

• Mentoring

• Surveying

• Serving on a committee, council, task force, board, house of delegates or another professional workgroup

• Passing examinations that are not integrated with a certified activity

Source: https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/default/files/media-browser/public/cme/pra-booklet_0.pdf

What is a C(M)E credit?

A C(M)E credit is the ‘currency’ assigned to C(M)E activities. Physicians and other healthcare professionals use credits to meet requirements for licensure maintenance, speciality board certification, credentialing, membership in professional societies and other professional privileges. The criteria for credit designation are determined by the organisation responsible for the credit system.

Who monitors the accredited C(M)E providers?

The Council of medical education, which awards the original credits (e.g. the American Medical Association [AMA] for the AMA Physician’s Recognition Award [PRA] credit system), monitors for compliance with their credit system. They do so in several ways—through the accreditation self-study process, the investigation of complaints received and the review of information found in the public domain. Whenever warranted, the Council will proceed with follow-up inquiries to ascertain and address compliance with credit system requirements. If a C(M)E provider fails to bring its content into compliance with its policies, the privilege to designate credits will be withdrawn.

Professional bodies in developing countries can endorse the quality control process exercised by the medical education council in the land of origin of the C(M)E provider to avoid duplication of effort.

Which learning format does Accrecent accept?

Accrecent accepts enduring learning materials. An enduring material is a certified C(M)E activity that endures over a specified time. These include print, audio, video and Internet materials such as monographs, podcasts, CD-ROMs, DVDs, archived webinars, and other web-based activities.

To be certified for credits, an enduring material activity must:

• Meet all core requirements for certifying an activity.

• Provide clear instructions to the learner on how to complete the activity.

• Provide an assessment of the learner that measures achievement of the activity's educational purpose and/or objective(s) with an established minimum performance level. Examples include but are not limited to, patient-management case studies, a post-test, and/or the application of new concepts in response to simulated problems.

• Communicate to the participants the minimum performance level that must be demonstrated in the assessment to successfully complete the activity for credits.

• Provide access to appropriate bibliographic sources to allow for further study.

• Designating and awarding credit for participation in an enduring material

Credit designation for each enduring material must be determined by a mechanism developed by the accredited C(M)E provider to establish a good faith estimate of the amount of time a physician will take to complete the activity to achieve its purpose and/or learning objectives (e.g. the average time it takes a small sample group of the target audience to complete the material). Credit is designated in 15-minute or 0.25 credit increments, and accredited C(M)E providers must round off to the nearest quarter hour.

Credit should be awarded only to physicians who meet the minimum performance level on the assessment as established by the accredited C(M)E provider.

What is a conflict of interest?

Accrecent considers that a financial relationship creates a conflict of interest with C(M)E when an individual has a financial relationship with a commercial interest and the opportunity to affect the content of C(M)E about the products or services of that commercial interest. The potential for maintaining or increasing the value of the financial relationship with the commercial interest creates an incentive to influence the content of the C(M)E—an incentive to insert commercial bias. Accrecent monitors the conflict of interests of its modules. C(M)E providers must complete a disclaimer on the interests of every author whenever they submit a module to the Accrecent database.

How do I submit a complaint regarding an ACCME-accredited provider?

Submit a complaint online using the ACCME complaint form.

Can only physicians be authors of a C(M)E activity?

No. Nonphysicians can be co-authors at a C(M)E activity, such as nurses, dentists, students, patients, or representatives. Accreditation is an expensive process - we opted for accreditation of physicians in our starting phase; we plan to collaborate with accreditors for dentists and nurses as soon as it becomes within our financial reach. Initially, a collaboration with a physician is required, but he/she does not need to be the main author.

What is meant by "professional practice gap?"?  

A gap in the quality of patient care is the difference between healthcare processes or outcomes observed in practice and those potentially achievable based on current professional knowledge. The gaps can be described in clinical or non-clinical elements of care.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK43908/.

Must the educational need for each activity be grounded in actual data collected and analysed?

There are many sources of needs data that relate to professional practice gaps. The identification of a practice gap does not necessarily involve the collection of data. We advise you do a gap analysis:

Practice gaps can be identified through the process of a gap analysis. Performing a gap analysis helps to identify the necessity for the educational activity, frame learning objectives, select the appropriate teaching methods and format to achieve these objectives, and implement the most appropriate evaluation/assessment methods to measure the effectiveness of the educational activity.

Practice problems or gaps can be defined as the difference between what a learner currently knows and is doing (current practice) and what he or she should know and do (best practice). Therefore, the first step in a gap analysis is to define each component:

The space between the best practice (the answer to the question "What should be happening?") and the current practice (the answer to the question "What is currently happening?") reveals the gap (the answer to the question "What is the difference between what is and should be happening?").

Another way to approach a gap analysis is by answering the following questions:

What areas in practice do you and your colleagues find challenging?

Examples:

• Difficult-to-manage or non-resolvable cases

• Improving leadership ability

• Prevalent public health problems

• Patient safety concerns

• Limitations occurring in the healthcare system

What factors are contributing to an identified problem in practice?

Examples:

• Insufficient funding

• Lack of training

• Institutional bias/culture

What does the learner need to do differently in order to improve practice or professional skills?

Examples:

• Refine technical/procedural skills

• Learn and practice optimal communication strategies and techniques

• Collaborate interprofessionally for best patient outcomes

Guidelines to Identify Professional Practice/Patient Care Gaps

Below are common methods used to determine best practices and resulting practice gaps:

• Research findings/evidence

  • Patient care audits/quality improvement data

  • Current literature

  • National clinical guidelines

  • Trends in healthcare

• Expert feedback (planning committee or other committee of subject matter experts)

  • Faculty feedback

  • Consensus of experts and related committees

• Participant feedback

  • Needs assessment results

  • Previous C(M)E activities evaluations or outcomes

• Regulatory body requirements

  • State licensure requirements

  • Board requirements

Practice Gaps Guidelines for C(M)E Activities | ACS (facs.org)

How do I protect patient information and images used in accredited C(M)E/CE?

Please be aware that confidential patient information cropped out of images in PDF or PowerPoint files may remain part of the file. Even though cropped information and portions of images are hidden from view, they may still be visible online, including on search engines. While this issue is not new, it’s essential to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to ensure that any image or information included in accredited C(M)E complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Below are instructions to ensure that images in C(M)E presentations are HIPAA-compliant.

Problem: After you crop an image within PowerPoint or any other Microsoft Office product, the cropped areas remain in the file, hidden from view. You need to take additional steps to help prevent other people from viewing the parts of the image and information you have removed.

Solution: There are two ways to avoid retaining the sensitive portion of a cropped image within PowerPoint or any other Microsoft Office product and within PDFs that are created from OR Use the compress function: Crop the image within PowerPoint or other Microsoft Office products. Then, compress the image, carefully selecting the “Delete cropped areas of pictures” check box to ensure the sensitive content can no longer be accessed. More details are shown below:

Select the picture or pictures from which you want to delete  Microsoft Office files:

Use a different program: Crop and save the image outside of PowerPoint or another Microsoft Office product, and only insert the image into the presentation after saving the cropped image via another program. You can use a program such as Paint or Gimp. Paint is free and part of the default Microsoft Windows installation. Gimp is a free, open-source image manipulation program that is available for Windows or MAC.

Cropped areas.

Click Picture Tools > Format, and in the Adjust group, click Compress Pictures. A dialogue box appears showing compression options.

If you don't see the Picture Tools and Format tabs, ensure you've selected a picture. You might have to double-click the picture to select it and open the Format tab. Also, if your screen size is reduced, you might only see the Compress Pictures icon.

What's the difference between "knowledge," "competence," "performance" and "patient outcomes"?

The first definition is that competence is used in the educational measurement term. Competence is about ability. Competence is what you would do if you could do it. It’s descriptive of strategy. Competence is knowledge put into action by the learner.

You put competence into action. You put it into practice — that’s performance. Performance implies in practice.

Outcome, patient outcome, research outcome, executive outcome, administrative outcome — those are the consequences in the system, in your stakeholder, in the place of application of your performance. You measure those to determine the impact of the educational intervention.

Does it matter if you call it performance and we call it competence or vice-versa? No. It doesn’t matter. What we want you to do is to understand those differences so that you know that measuring in practice is different than asking people what they would do if they could. Those are two different things. We call one performance, we call one competence. What we want you to do is decide what it is you want to measure as a result of the educational activity. Do you want to measure their strategy, what they would do if they could? Do you want to measure them in practice? Do you want to measure the consequences of their actual performance in practice? And you measure that. And you can call it what you wish to: competence, performance or outcome. That’s not what’s important. It’s that you recognise that there are differences between them.

Can measures of "patient or community health" improvement be self-reported by patients or community members?

Yes. Authors can measure patient or community health improvement using various approaches, including self-reporting by patients and other community members.

Can you explain what “patient/public representatives as authors” mean?

Accrecent is a strong believer in patient empowerment. Therefore Accrecent encourages physician authors to collaborate with patients, their families, and other public members as team members in accredited C(M)E or for patients, their families and other public members to reach out for collaborations with physicians to create content together.

Does "students of the health professions" refer only to medical students or residents?

No. Students from any healthcare profession can be the author of C(M)E activities. However, in the initial phase, a collaboration with a physician is required.

What are the terms and conditions of Accrecent?

• Distribution agreement
• Creative Commons License
• Advertisement policy
• Declaration of competing interests