Recently, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) released the 2021 ACCME Data Report, which includes data from a community of 1,668 accredited organizations that offer physicians, other healthcare professionals, and healthcare teams an array of continuing education resources to promote high-quality, safe, and effective care for patients.
Key Takeaways
The 2021 Report features information on 1,668 accredited education providers in the ACCME system, including ACCME-accredited providers, state-accredited providers, and jointly accredited providers.
The report found that the number of accredited educational activities increased by 19%, going from 172,000 in 2020 to 204,000 in 2021. Additionally, 2021 had “record levels of engagement from healthcare professionals,” with the number of physicians interacting also increasing by 19%, from 18 million in 2020 to almost 22 million in 2021.
When it comes to income reported by accredited providers, that also increased year over year, from $2.2 billion in 2020 to $2.8 billion in 2022, including increased industry support for accredited education ($772 million to $895 million), registration fees ($1.2 billion to $1.5 billion), and advertising and exhibits ($219 million to $367 million).
Overall Numbers
Accredited education providers offered a total of 89,389 enduring material CEs in 2021, 89,389 live courses, 79,673 regularly scheduled series, an d26,766 journal CME/CE programs.
ACCME-Accredited Providers
As far as CE presented by ACCME-Accredited providers only, there were 35,893 enduring material CEs, 19,196 live course CEs, and 10,187 regularly scheduled series. The most common ACCME-Accredited provider activity with both physician and other learner interactions was enduring materials, followed by regularly scheduled series.
Additionally, the total number of ACCME-Accredited providers increased from 639 in 2020 to 640 in 2021.
When it comes to the 35,893 enduring material CEs by ACCME-Accredited providers,
State-Accredited Providers
When it comes to state-accredited providers only, those providers offered 4,678 enduring material CE, 12,898 live course CE, and 7,630 regularly scheduled series. The most common state-accredited provider activity with both physicians and other learners was regularly scheduled series, followed by live courses for physicians and enduring material for other learners.
Jointly Accredited Providers
Jointly accredited providers offered 24,803 enduring material CEs, 25,873 live course CEs, and 6,367 regularly scheduled series in 2021. Of those, the enduring material CEs had the most total learner interactions (with just over 19 million) followed by regularly scheduled series with over 2.5 million interactions.
The report notes that the data “represents a stable system of accredited providers, demonstrating continued growth in online learning and team-based learning.”
Income Growth
As noted above, income reported by accredited providers did increase year over year. However, hospitals and universities are still showing a decline in CME income, which one can hypothesize is a result of continued COVID-related restrictions in 2021.
As you can see in the above chart, Medical Societies’ income growth grew in every category except government, while Schools of Medicine decreased in CME total income (due to decreases in commercial support and advertising dollars). Hospitals income decreased due to reduced commercial support as well, while non-profit and publishing CME providers saw their income grow in every category.
Statement from ACCME President and CEO
As Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc, notes in his message, the data in the report “reflects a growing accredited continuing education (CE) system,” showing “that our community of accredited providers has reacted nimbly to the COVID-19 pandemic, redesigning learning environments to offer critically needed skills and support to healthcare professionals and teams, and evolving their approach to meeting learners’ needs in a variety of new ways.”
Dr. McMahon also noted the new Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) that was launched in November 2021, which includes expanded options for reporting activity and learner credit data. Some of those changes establish 2021 as a new baseline for comparisons in future years, including the AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM offered.
ACCME plans to continue expanding “capabilities in tracking and managing information about accredited educational providers, their activities, and the learners who complete them.”