Significant changes to the rules and policies related to certified CME activities have occurred over the last few years. A couple of these are very important and all attendees and speakers at CME activities should be aware. The first is the extension of the restriction on involvement of commercial entities to include the fact that a commercial entity should not be involved in any manner, either directly or nuanced in the selection of content or speakers. Previously accredited providers were in charge of the decisions, but suggestions from commercial entities were permitted. This is simply no longer acceptable. The impact of this change on concerns related to bias of content or topics in CME has not yet been assessed as it is simply too soon. The second important change also relates to involvement of individuals with ties to commercial entities and their ability to participate as teachers in certified activities. Previously employees, full or part time, from these commercial entities could serve as instructors in certified CME, but with significant restrictions in place. Now, the rules are that such individuals cannot participate as an instructor in a certified activity related to any product or topic of relevance for that commercial entity. The impact of this change as it relates to concerns regarding bias has also not yet been assessed. Accredited providers need to be aware of these changes and help educate all members of the medical community to avoid breaches even if unintended.
Archive for August, 2009
Recent CME Rules Changes
Monday, August 31st, 2009CME: In a State of Change
Monday, August 24th, 2009The action in the CME world remains hot and heavy. CMSS (Council for Medical Specialty Societies) in conjunction with many of the members of the Conjoint Committee have announced plans to host a stakeholders meeting to begin to address the issues of a new model for funding of CME as suggested by the IOM. The AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) latest proposed report related to funding of CME was rescinded back to committee at the recent AMA House of Delegates meeting. CMSS is working with its member societies through a Task Force on Professionalism on a possible Code of Conduct. Senate Committee on Ageing held hearings on CME.
CME as a Value Center
Monday, August 17th, 2009At the SACME Spring Meeting I was invited to provide an interactive session on CME as a Value Center. The session was designed to utilize several instructional design methodologies so as to better engage the participants. These included self reflection, small group discussion as well as didactic components. The presentation was very well received and is available online for you to review. A similar yet highly focused presentation will be provided at the Council of Deans Session at the upcoming AAMC Annual meeting in Boston in early November.
Credit for Learning from Teaching
Monday, August 3rd, 2009Putting together high-quality evidence-based presentations takes a lot of time and effort. During the process of putting an original presentation together, new knowledge may be uncovered and the presenter will learn from the process itself. The presenter may learn additional information that solidifies their present understanding of an issue or they may uncover evidence that alters their approach to a topic. Throughout though they are learning! This self-awareness independent-study process can be quite useful for adult learners and firmly fits established adult learning principles.
The learner who uncovers new information may change the material that was to be presented to reflect this evidence or may change how they choose to present (e.g. instructional design) the evidence to the audience. In addition, the presenter may uncover evidence that alters how they themselves conduct their practice of medicine. The AMA has an established type of credit for this type of learning scenario.
I am attaching the application we presently use for this activity and embedded within the application is the evaluation form. This has not been vetted or approved by the ACCME, but we think after extensive review that this meets all relevant AMA and ACCME standards. Like all learning organizations, we strive to continually improve and in such spirit we would readily suggest that the needs aspect of the application could and will be enhanced in subsequent versions by including more information related to adult learning principles and independent study.
Download the application and embedded evaluation form (PDF).