International Academy for CPD Accreditation Proposed Guidelines for Global Accreditation Standards

In February 2020, the International Academy for CPD Accreditation (the Academy) opened a call-for-comment about a proposed set of international standards for substantive equivalency between continuing medical education/continuing professional development (CME/CPD) accreditation systems.

Substantive equivalency between accrediting bodies allows stakeholders, including national authorities, regulators, credentialing bodies, certifying bodies, as well as doctors and their patients, to know that the accredited education in support of improved patient care and patient safety meets the same level of independence, rigor, content validity, quality of design, and outcome measures. An added benefit is the ability to form agreements related to reciprocity of “credit” in jurisdictions that have and/or value credit as a currency of CME/CPD.

According to the Academy, the proposed standards are based on feedback received from the international community of CME/CPD accrediting bodies and regulators. The standards are an attempt to establish the domains and criteria for recognition of CME/CPD accreditation systems. Such established standards may help support international regulators in establishing physician educational requirements, and leaders of developing CPD accreditation systems to ensure these core elements are expressed in their CPD accreditation system to achieve international recognition.

Domains

The Academy proposed six domains with supporting standards, listed below:

• Domain 1: Eligibility and Responsibilities of an Accrediting Body
• Domain 2: Independency and Transparency in Accredited Education
• Domain 3: Needs Assessment Used in Planning Accredited Education
• Domain 4: Content Validity in Accredited Education
• Domain 5: Quality of Educational Design in Accredited Education
• Domain 6: Outcomes from Accredited Education

Survey Questions

The Academy has specific questions it would like stakeholders to respond to in their comments, including questions about whether the standards are clear as written, if the stakeholder foresees challenges or unintended consequences in implementing the standard, and whether the stakeholder has comments or questions about the standard.

Key Points

The accrediting bodies have come to a shared understanding of the need for:

• Obtaining relationships from faculty and planners
• Reviewing and mitigating those relationships to reduce bias
• Disclosing relationships to learners
• The emergence of a standard that dictates that industry support can’t be given to an individual or group practice.
• Limit ownership of accreditation bodies to outside independent organizations, not manufacturers, medical associations unless appropriate firewalls are in place, or for profit enterprises.  Example we can think of are similar structures to ACPE, and ACCME.

Organizations providing representatives for writing these proposed standards include:

• Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
• Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education
• Foundation Council, European Cardiology Section Foundation
• German Medical Association
• European Board for Accreditation in Cardiology
• American Academy of Family Physicians

Several global NGO’s including the World Health Organization have been providing input for these proposals.   Perhaps an oversight but from reading the proposal there does not seem be representatives on the writing committee from emerging markets such as Asia, South America, Australia, Africa or the Middle East.

These proposed standards seem to be closely aligned with the ACCME Standards for Commercial Support which have been the standard for accredited continuing medical education in the United States since the mid 2000’s.

“Global standards for substantive equivalency between CPD accreditation systems will help assure that healthcare professionals — regardless of where they live and practice— have access to education that is responsive to their needs, independent from commercial interests, and based on valid content. This approach to harmonization will accommodate learner mobility and enable CPD educators to collaborate with colleagues around the world to respond nimbly to emerging health priorities. By building consensus and collaboration, we, as a community of accreditors, can aim to achieve our shared strategic vision of better meeting the needs of upcoming generations of clinicians, driving quality in medical education, and improving care for the patients and communities we all serve.” —Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc, President and CEO, Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME)

The Academy is looking for responses from all stakeholders (accrediting bodies, accredited CPD providers, providers, regulators).  They would like to gather feedback if the standards are clear as written and if there would be any unintended consequences for the standard.

According to the Academy they ask that you please answer the questions that are appropriate for you organization, your feedback will help ensure that the standards are clear.

Comment Period

Initially the comment period was set to expire at 5pm EST on March 25,2020. However, given the unprecedented situation with COVID-19, according to an email we received on May 1, 2020 the deadline is now May 15, 2020. Stakeholders can submit comments here. An information package with background information (including the purpose of the proposed standards, the Academy’s approach to the development and revision process, the proposed standards, survey questions, and the original set of substantive equivalency values) can be found here.