Welcome to AOE’s February 2024 edition of AOE Compliance Connection, our monthly newsletter. This month, we bring you a summary from the ACCME’s Call for Comment about social media platforms, a peek into what you need to know about the (quickly approaching) Annual Reporting deadlines, and a second installment in our series on the trickiest commendation criteria and how to avoid the pitfalls!
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ACCME & the CE Community
In September of 2023, the ACCME put out a call for comment geared towards online and social media platform-based accredited education. As more platforms for delivering CME online have become available, the ACCME decided to request input on “a proposed designation for internet platforms, video players, and/or social media channels that wish to host accredited educational content and are willing to demonstrate they meet the ACCME’s expectations”.
With the goal of supporting the evolution of CME and avoiding the constraint of strictly traditional formats, the ACCME reviewed its existing policies while inviting stakeholder feedback. After gathering and reviewing the data from 215 respondents, a summary has been assembled, including qualitative and quantitative feedback. Overall, respondents “support the expectations and proposed platform but expressed a variety of concerns about the practical implementation” and suggested some further points to consider.
The ACCME’s conclusion is that the current requirements in the Standards apply to all accredited education, whether in-person or virtual. You can read the full Call for Comment Executive Summary here and also look over the FAQs geared towards online and social media platforms here.
Accreditation Board Bulletin: Annual Reporting
The Annual Reporting deadlines are quickly approaching! Depending on the boards with which your organization holds accreditation, here are a few quick guidelines:
ACCME
Annual Reporting is completed via the ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System (PARS) and will be due March 31, 2024. To access information regarding PARS, inclusive of the reporting requirements, please click here. You can also read a helpful FAQ dedicated to this topic.
ANCC
Annual reporting is completed via the ANCC Nursing Activity and Reporting System (NARS) and will be due April 1, 2024. To access last year’s ANCC Annual Reporting Requirements, click here. Additionally, an FAQ page that includes NARS topics can be found here.
ACPE
There is no annual report required for ACPE, as activity data is captured ‘real-time’ via the Provider Web Tool and CPE Monitor.
Joint Accreditation
Annual reporting is completed via the Joint Accreditation’s Program and Activity Reporting System (JA-PARS) and will be due March 31, 2024. To access last year’s Joint Accreditation Annual Reporting Requirements, click here.
The ACCME encourages providers to report this data in PARS on a regular basis throughout the year, as they complete activities (preferably within 30 days of the completion of the activity and evaluation). This tutorial provides additional information about submission of learner data in PARS; additionally, providers can learn more about uploading via batch processes or web services here.
AOE Spotlight on Commendation: Addresses Population Health Priorities
During accreditation and reaccreditation processes, AOE has assisted many providers in going above and beyond and demonstrating compliance not only with the Core Accreditation Criteria, but also with the Commendation Criteria set forth by the ACCME. All CE providers have the option to seek commendation (a six-year term) and become eligible for this status by compliance with Core Accreditation Criteria and any seven criteria of their choice from any category of the Menu of Commendation Criteria plus one criterion from the Achieves Outcomes category (a total of eight criteria).
Over these months, we’re taking a deep-dive into each of the five categories to highlight specific criteria that historically are most likely to trip up providers during the accreditation process.
Last month, we covered Criterion 23 with a focus on IPCE. This month, we continue with Criterion 27, one of three criteria in the “Addresses Public Health Priorities” category.
Criterion 27: The provider addresses factors beyond clinical care that affect the health of populations.
This criterion, and category in general, puts focus on those CME providers that have the opportunity to use their CME programs to leverage improvements in public health.
The ACCME refers to this as “implementation science,” and compliance with this criterion involves reaching past the immediate audience and their practices. A CME provider must demonstrate a desire and ability to change the public health environment and the health of populations. This criterion is focused on barriers to optimum health that fall outside the realm of clinical medicine. Examples include economic, social and environmental conditions, healthcare systems and access to care. In addressing this criterion, it is helpful to clearly identify the population, pinpoint the barriers that exist, and formulate strategies to address such barriers.
The ACCME doesn’t require use of a specific definition of public or population health but refers to “fulfilling society’s interest in assuring conditions in which people can be healthy” (Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health, 1988, p.19) [Institute of Medicine (1988). The ACCME FAQs clarify that teaching learners how to educate the public/community would count towards meeting this criterion.
Of the three criteria in this category, “Addresses Population Health” is the trickiest to comply with because the ACCME expects that providers demonstrate that the education didn’t simply affect a localized group of patients. Compliant providers demonstrate application to a broad community (statewide, perhaps, or another large community) such as those in a correctional facility or those who are members of an identifiable community, such as truck drivers.
So, how can providers demonstrate compliance with C27?
From the outset, the common denominator across all three criteria in this category is that a provider must attest to meeting the criterion with at least 10% of activities (but no less than two) during the accreditation term and provide evidence of specific activity examples based on program size (Small: 2; Medium: 4; Large: 6; Extra-Large: 8).
The ACCME has posted many examples of compliance and non-compliance which are helpful to providers aiming to design a program worthy of commendation. A few examples are below:
Compliance:
- A provider designs and presents a rural health conference focused on strengthening rural communities through economic development and community health initiatives.
- A provider designs and presents an ethics conference addressing the high rate of suicide in its state, in conjunction with a suicide prevention initiative. It focuses on at-risk populations, legislations and policy initiatives, and how health care providers can become involved in advocacy.
Non-Compliance:
- A provider does not demonstrate in all submitted examples that it teaches strategies that learners can use to achieve improvements in population health.
- A provider only describes activities that focus on clinical care of individual patients and does not discuss strategies beyond that clinical care to affect population health.
The ACCME has a number of additional resources available on their website, as well. If you are interested in training and/or strategic planning related to commendation, please contact AOE at inquire@aoeconsulting.com.
Upcoming Events
- SACME Annual Meeting 2024
March 10-13, 2024, San Diego, CA
Read More >> - CMEpalooza
April 24, 2024, Virtual
Read More >> - Learn to Thrive 2024: ACCME’s Annual Meeting
May 14-16, 2024, Chicago, IL
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