{"id":112,"date":"2018-01-30T05:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T00:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.policymed.com\/cme-continues-to-evolve-for-providers-and-practitioners\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T00:13:08","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T19:13:08","slug":"cme-continues-to-evolve-for-providers-and-practitioners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/2018\/01\/cme-continues-to-evolve-for-providers-and-practitioners.html","title":{"rendered":"CME Continues to Evolve for Providers and Practitioners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Several articles about continuing medical education (CME) were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). One article discussed the importance of regulatory alignment with the boards while the other discussed the proposed CME pyramid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>CME Pyramid<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Medical education is an evolving field and as of late, there has been an increased focus on addressing professional practice gaps \u2013 the gaps between what physicians are doing and what they should be doing. Therefore, an outcomes framework has been proposed in the form of a pyramid that provides perspective on how addressing these practice gaps may be accomplished.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"> <a class=\"asset-img-link\" style=\"display: inline;\" href=\"http:\/\/policymed.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e5520572bb883401b8d2d4cfad970c-pi\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e5520572bb883401b8d2d4cfad970c image-full img-responsive\" title=\"Pyramid\" src=\"http:\/\/policymed.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00e5520572bb883401b8d2d4cfad970c-800wi\" alt=\"Pyramid\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2670581?resultClick=1\">According to the article<\/a>, \u201c[t]he pyramid is based on 7 levels of outcomes that are associated with the decisions of a clinician to participate in learning, to engage in learning, to use what he or she learned, and, at the summit, the effects of learning on patients and community. CME has traditionally been focused on learning (level 3) and in some cases on competence (level 4), which is similar to the \u201cshows how\u201d level of the pyramid in which a learner demonstrates to a teacher that he or she can do what has been learned.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The article further notes, \u201cIt could be argued that if CME contributes to improving patient health on a broad front, such that many patients and many diseases are affected, then community health, that is, population health, must necessarily improve,\u201d which is the impetus behind the push for all physicians and health care providers to be current on their education and continue learning for the benefit of their patients.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">Cultural differences also plays a role in practice gaps and an analysis of health care in different countries shows how evident cultural differences are and that gaps in knowledge happen in developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The article also notes, however, that improvement cannot be achieved by CME alone, but will require the involvement of many different organizations. For example, this year the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is proposing completion of an accredited CME program directed at performance or quality improvement. This Clinical Practice Improvement Activity must address a quality or safety gap that is supported by a needs assessment. The proposal has been endorsed by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, which is now collaborating with the American Board of Medical Specialties to facilitate the integration of CME and maintenance of certification.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The CME pyramid works to bring each of the individual groups together to create a comprehensive solution to physician and provider education. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>Innovation through Regulatory Alignment<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The President and CEO of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), Graham McMahon, MD, MMSc, and the Vice President for Medical Education at the American Medical Association (AMA), Susan Skochelak, MD, <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2670582?resultClick=1\">co-authored a piece<\/a> published in JAMA on how to promote innovation through the regulatory framework. The article discussed the collaboration between the ACCME and the AMA to establish and credit CME activities in an attempt to support clinicians and developing learning opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">The authors discussed the way the two groups collaborated on a strategy \u201cto more closely align the 2 organizations\u2019 requirements, simplify the system, and eliminate any barriers (perceived or real) that would constrain innovation in educational delivery. To develop their approach, the organizations convened listening sessions with various groups (including staff, volunteers, and leadership from accredited organizations and state medical societies), gathering feedback from physicians and educators about how to reconstruct the system to better support the evolution of CME.\u201d It was through this process that a joint construct was formed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">\u201cAs part of the alignment, the AMA simplified and reduced its learning format requirements. There were previously specific requirements for 7 formats; now, there are specific requirements for only 3 formats: enduring materials, journal-based CME, and performance improvement CME. In addition, the requirements for these 3 format types were simplified, so that learning is prioritized. For example, the familiar posttests can be replaced with a self-reflective statement about what has been learned and how the learner plans to change; the outcome measure for a quality improvement effort can be locally determined.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">This flexibility will help physicians and CME providers alike learn more and be able to achieve more through CME.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">To that end, the ACCME, in collaboration with the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education and the American Nurses Credentialing Center, created the first joint accreditation system to facilitate interprofessional continuing education. This program can serve as a model for accreditors in the health professions for developing systems that promote and facilitate team-based education by removing barriers between professions and expanding the delivery of interprofessional continuing education to facilitate measurable improvements in team performance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;\">McMahon and Skochelak noted that the success of this construct and the continuing success of CME is going to mean continuing evolution \u2013 including identifying needs and gaps in CME and adopting approaches that reflect \u201cthe same innovative spirit and nimbleness\u201d expected of educational providers.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several articles about continuing medical education (CME) were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). One article discussed the importance of regulatory alignment with the boards while the other discussed the proposed CME pyramid. CME Pyramid Medical education is an evolving field and as of late, there has been an increased […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,37,14],"tags":[1101],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accme","category-ama","category-cme","tag-new"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3506,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/3506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.policymed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}