AOE Compliance Connection – November 2020 Newsletter

Welcome to the November 2020 edition of AOE Compliance Connection, AOE’s monthly newsletter. This month, we are excited to introduce you to our newest team member and highlight one of our professional services. We’ll also bring you updates from the ACCME related to another MOC board collaboration, a new series of culturally relevant webinars, and a reaccreditation cohort deadline update. As we always say, “Your success is our deliverable!”, and keeping you and your team informed is part of the equation. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for weekly compliance tips and other timely updates!

Association Management

AOE offers a wide range of services for our very diverse partners. One of our offerings is geared towards medical societies and associations that place education central to their mission. AOE provides tailored association management services (now featured here on our website). Whether our partners’ needs are to effectively manage daily operations and meeting planning, to increase educational offerings, to grow and retain members, or even to deploy new member benefits, AOE provides association management services with a proven track record of excellence and success.

AOE Welcomes Sarah Ryan

The AOE team keeps growing! Last month, we welcomed our newest Program Manager to the team: Sarah Ryan, PhD.

Sarah’s background and education are rooted in the biological sciences, and she brings a strong scientific background and over 10 years of project management and customer service experience to AOE and its partners. Prior to joining AOE, Sarah worked for a biotech company where she was involved in scientific business development. Sarah has also taught high school and college level science courses. As an instructor, she was responsible for curriculum design and instructor training, in addition to teaching.

Sarah is skilled at process design and implementation to achieve desired outcomes. Additionally, she is well-versed in scientific research and translation of accreditation guidelines. As a Program Manager, Sarah oversees CME/CE program audits, reaccreditation milestones and CME/CE program management. Sarah earned her undergraduate and Master’s degrees from Colorado State University, and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biophysics from the University of Denver.

To read more about the AOE team and the unique skills, education, and experience each individual brings to the table, visit the “Who We Are” page on our website!

ABS Continuous Certification

Beginning in February 2021, accredited continuing medical education (CME) providers currently in the ACCME system will be able to register through the Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) any CME activities that meet the requirements of the American Board of Surgery (ABS) Continuous Certification Program. This includes all providers accredited by Joint Accreditation, as well.

The process will be similar to registering other Maintenance of Certification (MOC) activities that meet the requirements of other certifying boards that are in collaboration with the ACCME: Existing collaborations exist with American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA), American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), American Board of Ophthalmology (ABO), American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (ABOHNS), American Board of Pathology (ABPath), and American Board of Pediatrics (ABP).

As with the other certifying boards, no applications or pre-approval from ABS will be required, and activities registered in PARS for ABS Continuous Certification will appear in ACCME’s CME Finder. ABS has stated that they will accept activities registered as Accredited CME and Self-Assessment (Accredited CME with Evaluation and Feedback). If it is relevant to surgical practice, any CME activity can be registered. To grant Self-Assessment credit, providers will also need to inform learners about participation in the evaluation component and provide feedback to them about whether they met the requirements to earn Continuous Certification credit for the activity.

Read the ACCME’s full article with more details here.

The ACCCME has launched a new, free webinar series specifically designed to address timely concerns and opportunities. The “Meeting Challenges Together” series aims to gather the accredited CE community in order to address these culturally relevant topics and to discuss the opportunities therein for the learners, teams, communities, and organizations involved in CE.

The first webinar, “Advancing Social Justice with Accredited Continuing Education”, which took place on July 13, 2020, is still available online, along with a resource page dedicated to help CE leaders and educators respond well to healthcare inequities and social injustices. The ACCME explained their desire for the CE community to be part of the solution, “navigating a path from empathy to understanding to action”.

The second in the Meeting Challenges Together Webinar Series will take place on November 16, 2020 and will be a collaboration between the ACCME and the Veterans Health Administration. In support of National Veterans and Military Families Month, “Advancing Care for Veterans and Their Families with Accredited CE” addressing how the accredited CE community can advance care for veterans and for their families.

The ACCME is encouraging the sharing of these resources on social media, along with the hashtag #MeetingChallengesTogether.

The ACCME recently notified the July 2021 Cohort for Reaccreditation of a change in deadline. Due to an issue that arose related to document uploads, the ACCME has requested that providers wait to upload documents to the Self-Study Report and Performance-in-Practice forms (although they can still enter narrative descriptions into the text fields). The ACCME will email providers directly to let them know once this issue has been resolved.

As a result of this issue, the submission deadline for the July 2021 cohort’s Self-Study Report and Performance in Practice Abstracts is now Wednesday, December 16, 2020.