Stretch Assignment: 5 toe touches and a QI Initiative

We CME professionals often go about our day, working feverishly to ensure compliance for upcoming events and to finish the file for completed events. We all know that there is change brewing in healthcare, but if we have a chance to think about the big picture, it may not include the idea that quality improvement (QI) is in our wheelhouse. Well, some have suggested IF NOT US, THEN WHO?! 

Remember: the ACCME/IMQ requirements are not just rules we have to follow. They are designed to facilitate the planning of education which will enable/inspire physicians to do their jobs better.

During a recent webinar regarding the ACEhp’s Education Initiative, Jack Kues defined quality improvement as the process by which current practice is moved towards best practice. Isn’t that what we CME professionals do all day, every day?

In the same webinar, Robin King stated that we need to remember to help practitioners implement best practices in their practice setting if we are going to initiate any change. This is our stretch assignment, because although we think about barriers to implementation, how many of us actively plan to address these barriers? We still buy-in to Francis Bacon’s statement that knowledge is power. (He was an Elizabethan from the 17th century. We now know it takes more than knowledge to change behavior.) 

As we CME professionals take ownership of this QI issue, or at least, an appropriate portion of the ownership, we can be part of the change. I’m ready. Are you?