Welcome to the February 2020 edition of AOE Compliance Connection, AOE’s monthly newsletter. We hope that 2020 has already been a productive and creative one for you and your organization! This month, AOE’s newsletter features breaking continuing education news about the coronavirus (COVID-19), and a continuation of our series focused on ACCME Accreditation with Commendation. We’ll also share upcoming deadlines for board-specific annual reporting. For weekly compliance tips and other timely updates, follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
Coronavirus Resource Page and ACCME Call for Comments
As the public continues to closely monitor the novel coronavirus outbreak, the CME community is responding. The ACCME has created a Novel Coronavirus Education Resource webpage for the purpose of gathering and sharing resources for the community of clinicians and providers engaged in responding to the coronavirus public health emergency. The ACCME is encouraging the CME community to circulate this link freely, and to stay updated via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
As a reminder, the ACCME has also issued a call for comment about the proposed Standards for Integrity and Independence. If your organization has not responded, you still have time! Responses will be accepted until Friday, February 21, 2020. The ACCME has created an information package to review before completing the online response survey. The package includes the current and proposed Standards, the survey questions, background materials, and more information.
New Menu for Accreditation with Commendation
Category #4: Demonstrates Educational Leadership
This month is the fourth installment of the series on the New Menu of Criteria for Accreditation with Commendation. This month we’re focusing on Category #4: Demonstrates Educational Leadership, which includes C33, C34 and C35. This category is best summarized as advancing the CME enterprise both within organizations and more broadly.
Criterion 33: The provider engages in CME research and scholarship.
Criterion 33 indicates that engagement by CME providers in the scholarly pursuit of research related to the effectiveness of and best practices in CME supports the success of the CME enterprise. This criterion focuses on CME providers that think beyond their primary educational mission. It asks: Does the CME provider meet the needs of a community of educators, not just the needs of its own organization? Participation in research includes developing and supporting innovative approaches, studying them and disseminating the findings. Criterion 33 requires that a CME provider conduct scholarly pursuits relevant to CME and submit, present or publish a poster, abstract or manuscript to or in a peer-reviewed forum.
Per the FAQs on the ACCME website, the CME team does not have to take the lead on management of the research project. However, the research must be related to the effectiveness of and/or best practices in CME. Further, while the results of research from two distinct projects must be developed into a form that can be shared with the community and has been submitted to a peer-reviewed forum, acceptance for publication or presentation is not necessary to demonstrate compliance. Peer-reviewed forums include peer-reviewed journals or research-focused conferences “in which there is a vetting process to assure that the material being presented is evaluated for its scientific merit by peers in educational research.” Lastly, the research can be qualitative or quantitative or both.
In order to achieve compliance with C33, a CME provider must submit a description of at least two projects completed during the accreditation term including the dissemination method used for each project.
Criterion 34: The provider supports the continuous professional development of its CME team.
This criterion is for providers that support their CME team in participating in continuing professional development (CPD) in domains relevant to the CME enterprise. CPD may include trainings, conferences, webinars, and other activities that promote staff education. There are several Critical Elements that must be fulfilled in order to meet compliance with C34:
- There must be a CME-related CPD plan in place for all members of the CME team.
- The CPD plan must be based on a needs assessment of the team.
- The plan must include some activities external to the CME provider.
- There must be dedicated time and resources for the CME team to engage in the plan.
To determine if a specific training would meet the criterion, the individual or group of individuals must be considered members of the CME team. For example, “if faculty are functioning as members of the CME team then providing education and support for them on how to be more effective educators or educational leaders would be considered continuous professional development of your team.” Similarly, “ if meeting planning staff are part of the CME team, then education/training for them about how to be more effective meeting planners would fulfill the expectations of continuous professional development for Criterion 34.”
Ultimately, to demonstrate compliance with C34 a provider must submit a description of the CPD plan that has been implemented for the CME team during the accreditation term.
Criterion 35: The provider demonstrates creativity and innovation in the evolution of its CME program.
Criterion 35 is for those CME providers that implement innovations in their CME program to help meet the evolving needs of learners. This criterion asks:
- Can the CME provider show change and evolution of the program?
- Is the CME program improving?
- Is the CME program/provider doing “cool new stuff” that can be highlighted and learned from?
When addressing this criterion, it’s important to ensure that creativity and innovation is tied with meeting a CME provider’s CME mission statement; it’s not creativity for creativity’s sake.
One of the Critical Elements for C35 states, “Implements an innovation that is new for the CME program.” The ACCME has indicated that “new” means new for the current accreditation term. Additionally, the ACCME has clarified that implementation of a new format or a series of new formats into a CME program could be considered one innovation. The FAQs were specifically inquiring if each new format could count as an innovation. The answer is no – it would count as a single, new innovation.
Providers must submit descriptions of four examples from the accreditation term in order to achieve compliance with Criterion 35.
The ACCME has a number of resources available on their website including FAQs and Examples of Compliance.
If you are interested in training and/or strategic planning as related to the New Menu of Criteria for Accreditation with Commendation, please contact AOE Consulting at inquire@aoeconsulting.com.
Accreditation Board Bulletin
Part of the service that AOE provides to readers are weekly compliance tips and monthly CME/CE community news for ACCME, ANCC and ACPE.
ACCME
The ACCME requires that all CME providers identify the educational needs that underlie the professional practice gaps of the target audience in order to plan and implement education that effectively addresses the identified gaps. Further, these CME activities must then analyze changes in learners’ competence, performance, or patient outcomes. However, for many providers, “educational need” can be the source of some confusion. The term “educational need” is defined by the ACCME by the “educational measurement term” not the general definition. In short, the definitions are as follows:
- Knowledge: What a learner does or does not know, e.g., facts, data, or information that help to understand a new topic.
- Competence: How to put the knowledge into action. Forming a strategy that turns “what you know” into a plan for “what you’re going to do.”
- Performance: Putting strategy, or competence, into practice – the action of doing what has been learned in professional practice.
- Patient Outcomes: Measurement of the impact of the education on the patient.
The ACCME requires that all CME activities measure, at a minimum, change in learners’ competence. It doesn’t necessarily matter what language your organization uses internally to name the educational needs of your program as long as it is clear what your CME program will measure as a result of the educational offering.
When completing annual reporting in PARS, it is necessary to indicate what each educational offering measured: competence, and/or performance and/or patient outcomes.
Annual Reporting Reminder:
The ACCME’s deadline for 2019 year-end reporting is March 31, 2020. As in previous years, data gathered between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019 should be entered into the ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS). State-accredited providers should check with their specific accreditor for reporting requirements and deadlines.
ANCC
Today, technology plays a large role in the creation of educational activities. But technology is not only used in the development and implementation of activities; oftentimes, providers have the opportunity to utilize mobile applications (apps) for the facilitation of educational events such as multi-day conferences. Mobile apps can promote social interactions between learners, deliver educational program materials to learners and a host of additional features. Using a mobile app is absolutely allowable; however, the ANCC does have guidelines to ensure the apps promote separation of education and commercial promotion, per ANCC criteria.
When using a mobile app to provide educational materials to transfer education and required information (i.e. disclosures, accreditation statement, acknowledgement of commercial support etc.) to learners, the app becomes an extension of an educational activity and the following guidelines should be followed:
- Pages, screens or sections of an app that include educational materials must remain free from any advertising, promotion or corporate logos of commercial interest organizations.
- Separation of commercial interests ensures that learners are not influenced by commercial interest organizations when getting to or retrieving educational materials.
- Advertising or promotion may be included within the app if it is in a separate page, screen or section, away from any educational components.
- Sponsorship of a commercial interest organization may be acknowledged but must follow the principles of separation as described in the ANCC’s Criteria for Ensuring Content Integrity.
Methods to separate commercial promotion from educational materials and components may include, but are not limited to, using a separate tab to clearly designate places within the mobile app to inform learners of educational components or using separate mobile apps or methods to provide learners with educational materials.
Annual Reporting Reminder:
All ANCC Accredited Providers must complete annual reporting by April 1, 2020. The required annual report is to be submitted to the Nursing Activity Reporting System (NARS) and must include activity data from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019. Click here for more information.
ACPE
Last month, at the Alliance 2020 Annual Conference, the ACPE hosted an update session to share information and updates across multiple topics. Two of the updates pertain to their Standards, Policies and Procedures, and apply to all ACPE-accredited providers.
First, a new topic designator has been introduced: 08 for Pain Management/Opioids. This topic designator covers all activities that address any component regarding the treatment and management of pain, including the prescribing, distribution and use of opioid medications, and/or the risks, symptoms, and treatment of opioid misuse/addiction. Topic designators are selected by providers when registering their new activities in the Provider Web Tool (PWT).
Second, the ACPE issued a disclaimer statement for paper statements of participation. Effective immediately, the official record of credit will be the information in CPE Monitor©. In the circumstances where paper certificates are still distributed, the following statement must be used:
“This statement contains information provided to the NABP from the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) via CPE Monitor©. ACPE policy states paper and/or electronic statements of credit may no longer be distributed directly to learners as proof of ACPE credit. The official record of credit may be located in the learner’s e-profile in CPE Monitor©.”
Upcoming Activities/Education Opportunities
- ANCC Nursing Continuing Professional Development (NCPD) Summit
March 18, 2020, Nashville, TN
Read More >> - Getting Started with Joint Accreditation Workshop
April 2, 2020, Chicago, IL
Read More >> - ACPE Spring 2020 CE Administrator Workshop
April 27, 2020, Chicago, IL
Read More >> - ACCME 2020 Meeting: Driving Change: Map Your Route to Educational Leadership
May 6-8, 2020, Chicago, IL
Read More >> - ANCC Pathway to Excellence Conference
May 13-15, 2020, West Palm Beach, FL
Read More >>
